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 >
 
 COMPTON READE.
 
 VERA EFFIGIES 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 STORIES IN VERSE 
 
 BY 
 
 COMPTON READE. 
 
 ELLIOT STOCK, 
 62, Paternoster Row, E.G. 
 
 1903.
 
 PR 
 
 To the patient parttier of long yeari of 
 penury with all the reverence due 
 to a woman of genius.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 (i) " Vera Effigies." (1871) i 
 
 (2) "The Bridge of Souls." The Nezv Centufy 
 
 Magazine (iSg^) ... ... ... ... 123 
 
 (3) " Force Majeure." Faa (iSSo) 135 
 
 (4) "Ultra." New Century Magazine {i%()^) ... 167 
 
 (5) "Red Music." (1869) 179 
 
 (6) "Mirage." Neiv Century Magazine (1899)... 219 
 
 (7) " Mary of Romsey." Art J?evie?u (iSg^) ... 229
 
 VERA EFFIGIES.
 
 VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 Bid the great dial of the world's whole day 
 
 Retrogress four degrees. Next, pliant plant 
 
 Your step amid strange conscience, voices, use 
 
 Then, as you find our actors to their faith 
 
 Faithful, the nonce adorn your faith with faith, 
 
 Which, if a jewel flawed, to them, being all 
 
 Found jewellery, seemed perfect in its flaws ; 
 
 A jewel so intrinsic as to earn 
 
 A setting rare in art, in toil, in cost. 
 
 Their truth and ours are diverse. It is well. 
 
 Each cycle brings fresh knowledge. Theirs for them 
 
 As ours for us. One kind ; yet different growths. 
 
 In this, more sap ; in other, dainty grace. 
 
 Our scene is Italy. Nameless the place, 
 Save for high art that ever spread its worth 
 For holy study of most holy things. 
 A city decorate with palaces. 
 Gorgeous in wealth, in form magnifical, 
 Whose very totter tells of grandeur gone ; 
 Whose prince had writ one page in history. 
 With volumes in men's hearts ; whose century 
 Is as the zenith of a butterfly.
 
 VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 That feasts on colour, drinks the liquid sun. 
 Chiefly, a spiral alp mid lesser crests, 
 Surges its grand cathedral virginal. 
 Ere weary time had wasted tracery. 
 Or revolution desecrate with blood ; 
 When curve-lined capitals of boskage-fern 
 Grew fresh from inspiration, deftly wrought 
 With vivid fronds ; when fresco told of art, 
 But not of artists, for their name and life 
 Lay buried in a mystery of gloom, 
 Yet happy gloom creating polychrome 
 In richest tangle. Hidden art from fame 
 Is as an oblate hallowed by her veil. 
 No deed so true, as one which dies untold. 
 
 Such then our site. Our time the later hours 
 
 Of that grey episode, the moyen-age. 
 
 Already thought was free, and dusk was dawn, 
 
 Song melted as from heaven, change abroad 
 
 New fields now fertilised, now ploughed up old, 
 
 Nor wisely always. Order-artists ceased 
 
 Distorting idea to sterile fact. 
 
 Whilst men essayed their brush to lustre fact, 
 
 Emptied of earth, by idea's rainbow-rays. 
 
 Genius gat honour. Princes lavished price 
 
 On priceless heirlooms ; whilst a world-like world 
 
 Forgot art-yesterday in art to-day. 
 
 Now this cathedral massed forth under heaven 
 
 A quarry hewn to grace by myriad hands ; 
 
 Within the vault which spanned the whole was white
 
 ^ VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 In tonal purity to soothe the eye ; 
 
 Shm stately shafts clustered, like trunks of trees 
 
 Lining an avenue ; arch, tracery, 
 
 Deep moulding, pencilled branches, whose were leaves 
 
 Of diaper, with boss of eglantine ; 
 
 Whilst high aloft, like nests, or mistletoe, 
 
 Ranged saints enshrined 'neath fret-work canopies ; 
 
 And higher yet, translucent types of blest 
 
 Chequered in undules of a chastened light 
 
 The whole with tincts to satiate a soul. 
 
 Chiefly the grand high altar blazed around 
 
 A mine of wealth, a miracle of craft, 
 
 The poetry of many grouped in one, 
 
 By combinations not fortuitous. 
 
 But of long centuries the quotient skill. 
 
 All was a symbol, all a character. 
 
 Worthy the church-wrights of the moyen-age. 
 
 Sad that no faultless thing lasts free of fault ! 
 
 One cloud amid a galaxy of stars, 
 
 One nettle in a bed of violets. 
 
 One discord in a harmony of tones. 
 
 One little fleck on beauty's perfect cheek; 
 
 Else of omission graver than mere fault. 
 
 So in this fane. A sculptured reredos 
 
 Of lace-like masonry majestic rose 
 
 Behind the altar, at whose centre-base 
 
 Was pierced, beneath the statues of His twelve, 
 
 Of alabaster pure The Crucified, 
 
 Divine in agony of venient death — 
 
 A spectacle of faith condensed in form.
 
 VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 It chanced that clumsy hand, or subtle brain — 
 
 For in those days men's minds were on the change — 
 
 Had placed a ladder nigh the reredos 
 
 To brush away dust-shade of months, which fell, 
 
 And falling rived that Holy Thing ; whereon 
 
 The prince of this fair place, friend to the church, 
 
 Erased an efifigy so marred, and fixed 
 
 A frame with cherubs blowing bulky horns 
 
 To hold an altar-piece. All Italy, 
 
 With every farthest isle of Christendom, 
 
 He willed should hear of his new altar-piece, 
 
 Designed to be the passion-flower of art 
 
 In that the age of newer art, for men 
 
 To laud his taste, and zeal for Holy Church. 
 
 Now in a cloister that adjoined this fane 
 
 There dwelt a monk, by name Evagrius, 
 
 The hardest stickler to the hardest rule. 
 
 Knowing nor sleep by night, nor food by day, 
 
 Nor any raiment save a shirt of pain 
 
 Beneath his habit ; him the gelid frost 
 
 Wasted in cruelty, long fast consumed, 
 
 Till he became the spectre of himself. 
 
 Being enthusiast in face and mind — 
 
 Whence the realm's laity were all agape 
 
 In reverence — whose lips were furnaces 
 
 To scintillate faith-fires enkindling more. 
 
 Thus when the reredos a chance defaced, 
 
 Or purpose — whatsoever was the cause — 
 
 This monk grieved sore ; his love this shrine of love. 
 
 Whose beauty was his only luxury.
 
 VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 Now sorrow of a bosom lone is shared 
 
 With heaven alone. He therefore sought his cell, 
 
 And crucifix, an eburn treasury 
 
 Of penitence ; then told this bitterness 
 
 In child like unreserve — his little joys, 
 
 His lesser fears, and sproutings of dead doubts, 
 
 All, all he wont to tell that treasury. 
 
 But, gazing on the pendent chiselling — 
 
 As sheep upon their shepherd's crook left low 
 
 Within the fold, the shepherd far afield — 
 
 Thought framed itself to wish. He held a creed — 
 
 An art-believer, yet art-infidel 
 
 In limit of belief, he dared believe. 
 
 That truth in form or colour teaches truth 
 
 By force of sympathy. Reality 
 
 E'en to a likeness of the finest hair 
 
 To him was gold ; dull dross an idea. 
 
 Give him life-copy — mere inessence art, 
 
 Unless the crystal-mirror of a fact. 
 
 His wish was graffed on creed. A very Christ. 
 
 No glomering of virtues into face. 
 
 The figment of a man, not deodate. 
 
 But such as was, and is, and is to come. 
 
 Soon wish increased to prayer ; then hope ; then vow 
 
 Of bearing in his body, as did Paul, 
 
 Five stigmata thenceforward of five wounds. 
 
 Should hope be real. He prayed, ' O Light from Light, 
 
 Unseen save as a rainbow through our tears, 
 
 Sweet dim refraction toned to human sense, 
 
 I ask Thy lineaments ; for why should Jew 
 
 Have seen, who had nor eye, nor heart, nor faith,
 
 VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 Whilst we wait death for sight? Needs must we wait. 
 
 Yet be the mirage of Thy distant face— 
 
 For love to anthem, thought to company 
 
 All voyages remote, for memory 
 
 To guard within her tabernacle sure — 
 
 Reflected o'er the waste of worlds, and suns, 
 
 And universe inimitably far, 
 
 For dear truth's sake !' Thus fervent as his Hps, 
 
 Dim scales descended on his eyes hke sleep ; 
 
 Ceasing from time he fell into a trance. 
 
 An unit of the past his footsteps ranged 
 
 The ways of some vast city wittingly, 
 
 Though tired in raiment strange, mid voices strange 
 
 Yet fraught with meaning of tone-words, for tone 
 
 Is language to the bee, and merle, and hound, 
 
 To each that breathing heareth. This told hate 
 
 Of One accused, whom eye on eye condemned. 
 
 Save a sad group of womanhood, apart. 
 
 But clustering round a mother, who downcast 
 
 From dread foreknowledge stood a miracle 
 
 Of barely mortal anguish, numbed, yet quick. 
 
 Wailed, they around her silent, melodies 
 
 For all their minor — deeper far than sound, 
 
 Too triste for tears, too agonised for tone. 
 
 Her face seemed as familiar ; how, or where. 
 
 No memory could answer. Marvelling 
 
 At woe so wailing-wild the frequent throng 
 
 To him gat closer, of bad countenance 
 
 Branded as Cain by masonry of crime ; 
 
 With whom, borne helplessly, his treadings tramped;
 
 VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 For many have one will. Anon, he gained 
 
 The high steps of a palace, whence to view 
 
 A nation pass before to suicide. 
 
 Vivid the scene was staring as in life — 
 
 Who caused to flow, can cause all time to ebb — 
 
 Each second wrought intensity, whilst sense 
 
 Balanced presentiment of coming sight. 
 
 For soon the foremost crowd succeeded men 
 
 Of iron visage, men whose march was free. 
 
 As conquerors contemptuous of slaves. 
 
 First one, giant in stature, hulking breadth, 
 
 With scorn, as laughter, rippling o'er the calm 
 
 Of lineaments unknowing ruth, or grace. 
 
 Bore high an eagle standard, stained with blood 
 
 Of victories and ruin, wrought in brass ; 
 
 Whereat byestanders gazed askance ; there was 
 
 That roused the choler of wills impotent. 
 
 Round him, as battlements a tower, the van 
 
 Bristled in force. But after drooped a Form 
 
 Mangled to horror, shedding blood-baptisms 
 
 From countless scars on earth, for witnesses 
 
 Against mankind, and reeling as to fall 
 
 Beneath the cross-beam's heft His shoulders bore. 
 
 So terrible this spectacle of woe — 
 
 For now he knew that eye was weak to see 
 
 The vision will had asked — such agony, 
 
 Which as a censer frankincensed a world, 
 
 Rising in volumes unto far-off" spheres. 
 
 Until it reached the mercy-seat of God — 
 
 That would be blindness bless, or deadening sleep, 
 
 Aught that could hide. Thfe strange procession surged
 
 lO VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 Dark and incongruous to where he stood, 
 
 With face of flooding tears aroot he stood, 
 
 Who could have died for Him, yet found nor speech, 
 
 Nor motion. Sudden silent paused the throng, 
 
 And Jesus sore afaint from myriad wounds, 
 
 Jesus undimmed of clouds, though clouds blood-black, 
 
 Casting a sunbeam from His eye of light. 
 
 Faltered, ' Evagrius !— I love Evagrius !' 
 
 Then with one seraph smile passed on to death. 
 
 He saw no more. No more could sight have seen, 
 Else had the vessels of a tender heart 
 Disrupted soul from earth. The trance was o'er. 
 Prostrate he lay before his eburn cross. 
 Neither knew aught before the morrow's sun. 
 Whose rays, through rubies of his cell's trefoil 
 Gleaming, revealed on either hand and foot. 
 As on his side, plain marks of the five wounds. 
 Imprint as nail and spear, half-healing, sore — 
 True stigmata of saintship and of grace. 
 
 Then Easter dawned, what time the monk inspired 
 
 By memory of this apocalypse. 
 
 To all who filled the great cathedral nave, 
 
 Prince, prelate, potentate, and commoner, 
 
 His vision uttered from the pulpit's height 
 
 In accents diapason, full of tune. 
 
 Till the vast multitude drew deeper breath, 
 
 Most for amaze, not all of disbelief ; 
 
 For ecstacy persuades, where reason fails.
 
 VIA CRUCIS. II 
 
 As lightning leaves a fiery trail on trees, 
 
 So this upon the prince. A princely mind 
 
 Is most acute from nurturing in thought 
 
 Less tainted by necessities and shifts, 
 
 Which earthen workers. Him an idea, 
 
 Caught from the glow of words, and fancy-fanned, 
 
 Haunted, as lights a northern traveller 
 
 Which glare beyond dark hills on dreamy nights. 
 
 Evagrius had blamed all effigies. 
 
 Pictures, and carvings of The Crucified, 
 
 As less in agony, and less in love. 
 
 Mourning that art should cramp a concept's strength ; 
 
 For, having seen, ill-brooked his eye to see 
 
 A false presentment falsely named a Christ. 
 
 A prince's thoughts are deeds. This knew his realm 
 
 To be an university of art, 
 
 For masters, as for students ; hence decreed — 
 
 To gain an altar-piece of perfect work — 
 
 That who should picture, as Evagrius 
 
 Had seen, the Christ, in truth, with skill, life-large, 
 
 But pendent from the cross, should have from him 
 
 Wealth for years coming, chivalry, with rank 
 
 As premier artist of the guild of art ; 
 
 Evagrius, the arbiter of fact, 
 
 Whose golden mouth had painted gloriously 
 
 In outline, as in colour, should award 
 
 Merit to merit ; skill inhered in truth ; 
 
 Success in that, which turned a gift to use. 
 
 For did this prince believe — a strange belief — 
 
 That whoso studies art to serve his God,
 
 12 VIA CRUCIS. 
 
 With patience, self-expense, and reverence, 
 
 So energises as to represent 
 
 A grand ideal given him by God, 
 
 In shape, or sound, or wording of the brain. 
 
 A strange belief — It was the moyen age.
 
 VIA MUNDI.
 
 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 Felix, a painter, loved and loved not — • 
 
 A tangled better with a viler self, 
 
 Twain webs to be unravelled, less by him 
 
 Than circumstance. In mind nor wholly base, 
 
 Nor wholly true, yet dual as to faith. 
 
 It happened thus. The orphan of a day 
 
 Of bitter severance, when passed afar 
 
 The souls, who gave him life, most knit in death. 
 
 He stood alone, smooth-cheeked, shrill-voiced, unman, 
 
 Bud-promise of exotic worth, if reared 
 
 By care that fosters to maturity. 
 
 And strangers entered on the dead, who asked, 
 
 ' What of this one ? ' But kindness made reply, 
 
 ' He is not common.' Then a little scorn 
 
 From low things on a pedestal of chance. 
 
 Some sneer at germinants, and kindness ruled 
 
 The youth to art ; e'en dullards failed not rede 
 
 A finer essence coursing finer veins, 
 
 And minds, themselves unfit, needs must subscribe 
 
 To fitness. Firstly, Felix learnt his eye 
 
 By copy of the brush of old Verene — 
 
 Mage limner of things mystic, blest in fame, 
 
 In happy age, as ancient hills whose snows 
 
 Are ever rosied by a rosy sun — 
 
 Nor needed primers. Art in him was born,
 
 1 5 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 As nerves, which use expands. A little use, 
 
 And entity was force. He had his life. 
 
 Next, dawn of manhood. Soon, the antiphon 
 
 Of pulse to other pulse — he found himself 
 
 In sense of love. Verena wrought this change— 
 
 Verena only daughter of Verene, 
 
 Fair incarnation of an holy shape. 
 
 Her father dreamt of in an old, old dream, 
 
 When he would paint a Mary, and his brush 
 
 Was dull ere slumber-sight had dreaming seen. 
 
 His best was Mary. Then, in after-time 
 
 Before his life-love passed, she left behind 
 
 A little likeness of that subject-dream, 
 
 A living Mary of his picturing, 
 
 As in the halo of star-grace, which cast 
 
 Twelve varied lights to ray her countenance, 
 
 So in a coronal of simple truth. 
 
 An alb of innocence, a zone of faith, 
 
 A tender soul, an eye as deepest ice 
 
 Lit by a noon-day sun to liquid blue. 
 
 In her the old man lived, whose being fused 
 
 The real and ideal, type and life, 
 
 A concept energised ; more than a sire 
 
 He loved her as an artist loves his own. 
 
 Then morning most delicious, doubly gemmed 
 By life and love, with vapours few to dim 
 Their radiancy. But after, noon drew nigh, 
 With clouds to concentrate, not shade, the heat ; 
 And hotter blood began to permeate 
 A frame unused to fever. Then, athirst.
 
 VIA MUNDI. 17 
 
 Felt Felix simpler love ill satisfy 
 
 Intenser cravings. Lastly, one arose, 
 
 As from the fiery depth of molten mines, 
 
 Who coiled her shape around his breast to crush 
 
 His purer passion, yea to venomize 
 
 The reflux of a truth which filled his heart. 
 
 And he, — he cherished that against his truth. 
 
 Thus throve a destiny. This plant so straight 
 Severed asunder to a double growth ; 
 One off-shoot, tender-green, with sapling leaves 
 Bent easily, not yet to breaking ; one 
 Erect, well-rounded, thickly garnished 
 With foliage chrome-warm, umbrageous. 
 Increased apace, as though a tempest stroke 
 Alone could rive such tenure from a stem. 
 
 But Felix wearied of a heart unwhole 
 
 In impotence of will. His changeful face, 
 
 Erst self-contained because of unity. 
 
 Now blushed for shame, now flushed in darker tinct, 
 
 Now paled as at the footstep of a foe. 
 
 For old Verene one April mom had placed 
 
 With aspen jubilance Verena's hand 
 
 In his, who asked a father's dearest gift ; 
 
 When each had vowed to each, and he that vowed 
 
 Gazed — as a traveller on mid-ocean waves, 
 
 Seeking a future land, thinks with a soul 
 
 Akin to fathoms fathomless he views — 
 
 And gazing lost his soul in azure depth
 
 l8 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 Of strangest verity. What plummet-line 
 Might span immensity of maiden's Jove ? 
 Thenceforward was he thralled to fealty. 
 No treachery to eyes like hers, or else 
 Such shame as turns the chivalrous to churl. 
 
 The rudderless' desire is for the sea 
 
 Adrift. Her devious course for hidden sands 
 
 To bed her beams in wreck. The tide rolls swift, 
 
 Co-traveller with airs suspiring soft 
 
 Of many voices rustling ocean-song 
 
 To lull and lure. So Felix rudderless. 
 
 Verene, whose artist nature toiled to plant 
 
 The seeds of art, then watch them grow apace 
 
 In fertile soils, had chided Felix oft 
 
 For circle of conceptions radiant 
 
 To one same centre ; much of opal white, 
 
 Much shell-pink like her cheeks, with woven locks 
 
 As silken aureoles, and tints opaque 
 
 So setting as to lustre jewel eyes. 
 
 He urged, ' Love is absorbent. Yet for art 
 
 To whom all things are good, though one be best, 
 
 Forget thy one for once, thy light is shade. 
 
 Who sinks should rise, so he who rises, sink 
 
 To study opposites.' But Felix said : 
 
 ' I have no thought.' To which a curt response, 
 
 ' Then copy till thy copy brings thee brains ! ' 
 
 Felix obeyed the taunt. He sought, and found 
 To her the idol of his art and soul
 
 VIA MUNDI. ig 
 
 A dark antipathy, a thing of peach, 
 Carmine, and ebony, with wealth of form 
 Midsummerly in lazy grace and warmth. 
 Men called their plaything Delia, a soul 
 A-fire in brain to dare, in nerve to do, 
 In lips to lie. Her life a whole revenge. 
 For that the man she loved, her first and all, 
 Had played with — as a child a burning shell, 
 Thrown unperceived amid a city sieged — 
 Then flung her from him to work deadly wrong. 
 Henceforward truth to troth failed fitfully 
 By reason of this study — viaducts 
 Are eyes to brains — nor did she under-act 
 The temptress part, in gesture, word, or glance. 
 Self, she made idea ; he nymph of night. 
 Whose sable locks with countless luminance 
 Lit gems supreme, whose robe in fold dull gilt 
 Shaded to crimson deep, whose Hneaments 
 As life rich tinct. She, half involved in mere, 
 Afloat mid arrow-heads and water-growths, 
 But pillowed on a lily, moon-lightened — 
 Tide ripples, silver-rosy, orange-troughed, 
 Dallied her neck, and musicked with her hand — 
 Lay thinking to the stars that lent her thoughts. 
 
 Verena read this picture, which for skill 
 
 Verene belauded. Yet there was that blanched 
 
 Rose-blood to milk. There was that gripped to ache 
 
 A poor fond heart. She turned as loath to look. 
 
 Her lips a-tremble with mute utterance. 
 
 Then Felix : ' Want of praise, is worst of blame ! '
 
 ao VIA MUNDI. 
 
 ' Not so,' she quivered, in unkindness kind. 
 
 But he, by imperception petulant, 
 
 Loosing her hand impassive breathed reproach 
 
 His eyebrows raised, ' My future father deigns 
 
 To grant at least one hope of art for whom 
 
 Art is hope sole.' Then sudden glimpse of her 
 
 So paley-sad revealed his secret guessed ; 
 
 Back rolled the flux of feeling to old depths, 
 
 Translucent as the ocean of a calm. 
 
 And beautiful with beauty of a heaven, 
 
 Forcing his knee to droop — a silent plea, 
 
 Whence gleamed her eye a strange prismatic hue — 
 
 Then strongest vows re-iterate of troth, 
 
 Her heart rebounded to believe with joy. 
 
 But in that night Verena dreamed a dream 
 
 A dream of livid sky, unfleckt by winds. 
 
 Weird, airy, dial nor of sun, nor hour ; 
 
 And she stood on the margin of a mere, 
 
 Ill-verdured, arid, shelving to grim depths, 
 
 Whose waters formed a whirlpool, for the tide 
 
 Concentric flowed not shorewards, sweeping past 
 
 Stream-wise, fold-surfaced, in velocity. 
 
 In front a bark afloat, made fast, but swung 
 
 Straining at moorings, as beneath the keel 
 
 Smooth glide of force urged onwards. Much she mused 
 
 And musing curious picked a little spar. 
 
 Which, flung afar, she watched amid the flood 
 
 Sail slow, a speck, around and round again, 
 
 Each circle swifter, smaller, until prone 
 
 Poising it plunged within the gulf, and ceased.
 
 VIA MUNDI. 21 
 
 Whence knowing that these waters were of death 
 
 She thrilled in horror, nor as glamour-bound 
 
 Could swerve her gaze. When from the farther shore, 
 
 Just visible a bark athwart the tide 
 
 Moved whirling into size, and at her prow 
 
 The figure of a man forlorn and lost. 
 
 Her eye alone kept still, as nearer, near 
 
 The current bore him helpless. Moaned the lips 
 
 In helpless agony, which triple mocked 
 
 Echoes multiplicant of voice and pain. 
 
 That sound to her was sound known dear as life, 
 
 His tone untuned still tune, an antiphon 
 
 Her breast to whose sharp minor. Soon the man 
 
 Eddied along despair distraught — his face, 
 
 Her sum of hopes, blanched to the hue of death, 
 
 Who e'er past ear-shot stretching piteous palms, 
 
 Shrilled eager, ' Follow, follow. Thou shalt save ! ' 
 
 She looked out at the winding sheet of flood. 
 
 Which dared all courage in its certainty ; 
 
 She looked to see his finger beckon wild 
 
 In swift retreat. No scales to weigh a doubt. 
 
 Love seemed as death ; life most as death of love ; 
 
 And, which death was she knew, and which was life. 
 
 So chose from choice. Anon, she loosed the bark. 
 
 Which twirled and canted, rocked and rolled in chase 
 
 Of him, who strove to battle head-long speed 
 
 By oar and arm — each trice was priceless time — 
 
 Whilst in the bows she cowered waiting fate. 
 
 For first a daze of terror filmed o'er sight. 
 
 Yet not for long. Such peril quickened blood 
 
 To fever-pulse. Then she beheld astern —
 
 i2 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 Much marvel to entrance, reviving faith — 
 
 A mystic cable of the purest gold, 
 
 Whose links were crosses intertwined with crowns, 
 
 Wrought fine as lace, yet indissoluble ; 
 
 Which cable payed, and payed unceasingly 
 
 From hidden hollows unto endless length. 
 
 Then trust and dread contending each to maze, 
 
 Her circling voyage neared the adverse bank. 
 
 From whence had launched his bark precipitate ; 
 
 Whereon in joyance, gaudy-robed and free, 
 
 A thing of later girlhood, dusky flushed, 
 
 Stood pouting hatred, sneering ruthless ruth 
 
 Of hey-day life propelled towards abyss ; 
 
 Chiefly whose hand upheld a cable end, 
 
 Gold, patterned as this other, but by her 
 
 Rived crown from cross in stealth, whose triumph told 
 
 How lying love had lured to loose adrift. 
 
 No need to flaunt a shameless treachery, 
 
 To fling ill utterances after ill. 
 
 There was that saw, listened, full realised 
 
 Unfaith to troth, yet followed willingly, 
 
 For love is faith. The wider circles past, 
 
 Speed dizzied as pursuer so pursued, 
 
 Who toiled, if haply toil might way retard. 
 
 Till aqueous leverage rifted both oar 
 
 And power to combat. But her buoyant bark 
 
 Careered in wake, till space grew closer, close ; 
 
 Tossed arms embraced the intervening air, 
 
 Straining if but to touch, for each wild whirl 
 
 Seemed as the last, while to their shrinking gaze 
 
 Rolled huge the gulf of blackness deep as hell.
 
 VIA MUNDI. 23 
 
 Awe-torpor numbed her eyelids, whence a shade 
 Eclipsed a moment, yet, she knew, he leapt 
 Aboard from that bad bark, which tilting sank, 
 Whilst sudden, e'er he clasped her, the dread pool 
 Closed silent. Circling currents mingled free. 
 The mere flowed silver-snowy. All was peace. 
 Then, as above murk scrolled, and bursting light 
 Gloried the surface of stilled waves, the saved, 
 Hand joined in hand, did reverence supreme. 
 For now the golden cable shoreward moved. 
 And they with one mouth lauding, as they gazed, 
 Beheld upon the strand a white-robed One 
 Drawing them home. And either whispered soft, 
 ' Who is this friend ? ' Her soul the first to know 
 From clearer sight found speech, ' This is the Christ ! ' 
 And — speaking, sleep dissolved. The morningdawned. 
 
 But memory this vivid vision graved 
 
 On every present ; as on gaudy-days 
 
 A canto-fermo amid madrigals 
 
 Of jocund jollity, so lone at night. 
 
 With starry symphonies, and wakeful moon ; 
 
 So through cloud-wreaths, which shed on altar-flowers 
 
 An unity of fragrance, censing scent. 
 
 In the soul's ' sursum ' it was ever there, 
 
 Vibrating, ' Follow, follow, thou shalt save ! ' 
 
 A prescience of future comes not well. 
 For blended hope with fear is fear, whilst then 
 Makes now a care. Verena's smile unsmiled ; 
 Her love-light faded to despondent shade,
 
 24 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 As yew-chrome after beechen emerald. 
 Next, evil birds of chatter raucous croaked 
 Small mimicries of voices meaning much, 
 Despite much mimicry. How doves at morn 
 Dove-like are wooers of fair doves ; at eve 
 Fly far a-field. How woman is for one, 
 Man craves variety ; and how in love, 
 One gives, the other takes, but not returns. 
 
 Then came the prince's message. 
 
 All the guild 
 Of artist-brethren yearned to win noblesse ; 
 Whence chanced it, that each thought encased in words 
 Evagrius had uttered of his trance, 
 For proper weight was balanced, if to learn 
 Aught of that sum of attributes, The Christ. 
 
 Words tell no faces. In man's every line 
 
 Are histories of passion, which has been. 
 
 Of mind, which shaped its matter to its mind. 
 
 Essayed these patient toilers to pourtray 
 
 By copy of the ear, and not the eye. 
 
 Essayed to fail in essays glorious 
 
 As that keen reason of old Greece, which groped 
 
 So close as almost to embrace a faith. 
 
 Whereat the prince lost heart. But sage Verene 
 
 Bewailed these later, lauding ancient days. 
 
 Ere lucre tainted purer work, when saints 
 
 Untombed pale features for the painters brush — 
 
 His own withal disused, for that long years 
 
 Had dulled the azure of a faultless eye —
 
 VIA MUNDI. 25 
 
 And goaded Felix — who, till all mistried, 
 
 Modest rejected trial — to compete 
 
 For that he counted void of meanest hope. 
 
 Whereto Verena added suasive words 
 
 Of wishfulness. Bethought her of his art — 
 
 Perchance Christ-study might enchristian him — 
 
 To whom refusal was not. Yet he thought, 
 
 ' Rank much : gold more : love least : a woman's heart ! ' 
 
 Then quick unthought a thought her eyes disproved. 
 
 Sad cause was there for toil. A life biformed 
 
 'Twixt sun and moon, his night belied his day, 
 
 For Delia led him to where chance sat queen ; 
 
 Whither, as greedy vultures round the dead, 
 
 Who fluttering, wrangle for each other's prey, 
 
 Flocked idle souls, disporting with the spoils 
 
 Wrenched by the wrong of right from workers' wage ; 
 
 For gold is labour. He who gambles gold 
 
 Stakes with men's limbs, and hours, and lives, and souls ; 
 
 And gold is sacred as the gauge of work. 
 
 Work's worth in hand bore Felix, if to win 
 
 Bad out of good, by pitting want against 
 
 A superfluity which laughed at loss. 
 
 Towards debt he soon receded — Delia 
 
 Was usuress alike of love and gold — 
 
 Whereby her sway grew paramount, whose lures 
 
 Sufficed for youth, whose laughter, as a wheel 
 
 Revolved distinctions into dusky mist. 
 
 Thus, doubly pressed, he raised a fatuous brush, 
 
 Outlining a mere sufferer of earth, 
 
 Not Christhood great in woe, and less of man 
 
 By bearance of a yoke no man could bear.
 
 26 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 Whereon Verene reflective flung a glance, 
 
 Which, as midday above thick forest oaks. 
 
 Peered through close leafage down to gnarled roots. 
 
 ' Work is as heart is,' was his saw, and this 
 
 The work of one whose heart was as his work. 
 
 Thereafter for his child he beamed no smile 
 
 Untinged with pity, or unsmirched by tear. 
 
 Nor guessed she, why he ever turned at eve 
 
 To bless his daughter with averted head ; 
 
 Self being blind of self, who lived the serf 
 
 Of one seised of no right to manumit ; 
 
 Else for sheer pride of truer maidenhood, 
 
 Had freed herself and him, content to waste 
 
 Behind the grating of a nunnery ; 
 
 For woman's love is woman's vassallage. 
 
 One morn he came in absent mood, a rose, 
 White, wrecked by nervous fingering along 
 A path brief for rose ruin, offering 
 As perfect, seeing not its leaves aspersed 
 Abroad his artist-habit ; which poor flower, 
 Haply from likeness to her life, and love. 
 Haply by cruelty of chill unthought. 
 Seemed death of hope, and scattering of joy, 
 It told too much ; she wept — he knew not why ? 
 
 Again a reflux of the purer stream 
 From muddy shallows far as ocean depths. 
 Her sense was exquisite ; and he 
 Stunned as by fluid from a darkling sky 
 Could but protest.
 
 VIA MUNDI. 27 
 
 Shading her lustrous eyes 
 In lily palms, which as thick-falling snows 
 Exclude white day by whiteness, each fine nerve 
 A-quiver and a-fire, she left him still. 
 
 Fared forth this soul untrue, yet lashed to truth, 
 
 High images depicting in his brain 
 
 Of tears commuted for the smiles of peace, 
 
 Of calm more azure for a passing storm. 
 
 His inmost sense foreswearing shame, in hopes 
 
 Of future well atoning for past ill. 
 
 Twain sympathies had Felix, equal both — 
 
 Twain channels to the man his eye and ear, 
 
 Twain ministers of each his hand and voice — 
 
 The power of colour, and the power of sound. 
 
 Anon : in thrilling moments either met 
 
 In strangest unity, when tone was tinct, 
 
 And tinct a rainbow of sweet harmonies. 
 
 Thus influenced, he sought his studio. 
 
 And lute for solace, but his voice was dumb, 
 
 Mere music made no concord of repose 
 
 For troubled heart-strings, nor a mocking sun, 
 
 Flickering each quarry in an oriel. 
 
 This studio, erst prized for art, and home. 
 
 And birth-place of sweet fancies, seemed a jail, 
 
 Wherefrom his footsteps burst in weariness. 
 
 Bearing their burden little cognisant, 
 
 Through ways of men, to where the way of prayer 
 
 Opened the great cathedral. Thence he passed 
 
 To join with worshippers, who came, and went. 
 
 Nor ceased, as bees that circle round a hive.
 
 28 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 Thither before had wended to the cross 
 
 Verena, drooping as a lily parched. 
 
 Before the Presence of her faith low-bent 
 
 She knelt — cathedral floors were paved for knees ; 
 
 Men did not labour in the moyen-age 
 
 To raise a tasty raree show for those, 
 
 Who gape in idleness at size and shape, 
 
 As at a riddle which they fail to rede. 
 
 This church was built for God, as barns for grain. 
 
 And storehouse for the fruits of husbandry, 
 
 Since use has ever been first cause of work — 
 
 Her heart o'er full, yet not as lesser hearts 
 
 Distent with gall of jealous injury ; 
 
 Rather by tremor quick'ning instinct-love 
 
 To rescue, if perchance, a soul so dear 
 
 From wiles surpassing faith. Against these wiles 
 
 She weaved unto herself an holy spell. 
 
 In whispered hymnody, as tiny things 
 
 Hum tiny songs in tender unison, 
 
 To lullaby a summer's sun to sleep ; 
 
 ' O Bleeding Heart, regard a heart a-bleed ! 
 Wells oceanwards each rivulet, and mine 
 Purpling to waters infinite indeed. 
 
 Where dolour gnaws a never ceasing sore. 
 There lurks a love for love that is not thine. 
 Yet, Sacred One, Thou suffered'st far more ! 
 
 ' I ask Thy temper : in such love to live, 
 
 In such a life to love, as, if I die 
 
 A loveless death, e'en loveless to forgive.
 
 VIA MUNDI. 29 
 
 ' For know I love is but a dream imprest 
 On hearts ; more true the promise of a sky 
 Where love is all, and souls may rest in rest.' 
 
 Half-toned her cadence. Scarce a trilling throat 
 
 Found utterance for cold hope — as feeble wail 
 
 ^olian chords on stilly-winter nights — 
 
 When, by her side before the crucifix, 
 
 Knelt reverently sweet, with folded palms. 
 
 With down-cast eyelids, dumbly moving lips, 
 
 Felix to patter rote, word-vacancies ; 
 
 Yet nearer God, and nearer one, to whom 
 
 In whiter days he gave a whiter love. 
 
 For all his vacuous suffrages a thorn 
 
 Pierced breastwards, raising ulcers of remorse. 
 
 Time was when each uplifted hands and heart 
 
 In daily orisons, close parallels ; 
 
 To-day her life seemed high, his deep depressed. 
 
 Whose holiest voice a sigh, best vow a tear. 
 
 Furtive she watched him musing, as in prayer. 
 
 To see dashed on the floor a diamond 
 
 Impatient of its lustre, from his eye ; 
 
 Which token went for proof with maiden faith 
 
 Of constancy as constant as her own. 
 
 Soon half abashed for weakness trove he rose ; 
 Crossed brain to breast ; then stooping head and knee, 
 Passed forth, she following ; to whom without 
 He faltered low, ' A rose ought not make sad ! ' 
 Whereto she answered, as a summer's sky 
 Cloudless that drops an unexpected rain,
 
 3° 
 
 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 Her soft eyes tearful in soft radiance : 
 ' Sadness inheres in flowers, as in maids ; 
 Both are so fragile, both die easily 
 For lack of sun. But now I bask in sun, 
 And wish my sun may set not evermore ! ' 
 
 Alone they stood beneath the western porch, 
 Alone, and she was kind, he tender fond, 
 Till stern Evagrius, who happed emerge, 
 Over his hour's-boke peered askance reproof. 
 Thence, murmuring joyance, led he to a grove, 
 Which shades the great cathedral at the east, 
 Where voice could echo voice, nor aught disturb. 
 Save linnets trill, or hum of sacred tones 
 Within the choir, or booming angelus. 
 
 She could no censure. Trices sped too sweet. 
 Her only chiding was a loveliness 
 Of newer brilliance, as a polished gem. 
 Whose pristine glories dulled a careless care. 
 
 No need recall love's prattle. Ideas 
 
 Were eyes to eyes. Her's trust : his most of truth. 
 
 Beneath the denser foliage of an oak. 
 
 On folded roots framed cushion-wise in moss, 
 
 They found an harbourage from dancing rays, 
 
 And breezes fanning leaves to silver-green, 
 
 Whereon to dream their present always so. 
 
 Then love assuaging wounds inflict of love, 
 
 Her voice spake smoothly, ' Felix, young in years — 
 
 Yet art is born, not formed to eminence — 
 
 The noblest guerdon ever noble prince
 
 VIA MUNDI. 31 
 
 For sake of Christ, and truth, and holy church, 
 
 Has proffered inspiration — being a test, 
 
 If art be given of God, or made of man — 
 
 That guerdon one shall gain — for one alone 
 
 Holds gifts surpreme of thought, and form, and tinct, 
 
 With sympathies transcending common things. 
 
 As air cuts water — he, I preconceive 
 
 Is Felix. Shall not maiden know her best ? ' 
 
 Beamed Felix graciously, though half-despised 
 
 This open heart, which bared its tender chords 
 
 To feast his vulture-vanity ; withal 
 
 Joyed at obeisance. Him, not Delia 
 
 With all the honey of her naughtiness 
 
 Had rated thus as first. Though passing sweet 
 
 To list the flatteries of eye and lip, 
 
 He found more solace in a gazing soul 
 
 At altitudes his own by right of dreams ; 
 
 He loved her for such knowledge of his dreams. 
 
 ' No proof have I of armour : rounded stones, 
 Nature's offence, gain seldom victories 
 O'er art-goliaths.' 
 
 Thus he answering mused. 
 In mind ill-pleased, for that the task so tasked 
 Appeared mere miracle ; sublime effects 
 The wild ascetic umpire might pronounce 
 Unlike his vision ; being so, untrue ; 
 Which fancies chafing blurted into speech. 
 ' Short justice is it to assign a test. 
 Binding to commerce with the upper world.
 
 32 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 Or nether. Holy things my brush abjures. 
 
 Our ancestry exhausted holy things 
 
 In transcendental types. To-day we paint 
 
 Nature, not nature as she might have been ; 
 
 Our motive principle a living truth, 
 
 Ere barbarous Goth, and clumsy churchman crushed 
 
 The mightier art of Athens and of Rome. 
 
 Give me to draw a poem ; not a dirge ; 
 
 An idyll, or an epic, and thou will'st. 
 
 But something fleshlier than this pietism — 
 
 It makes me hate religion to be doomed 
 
 Erect an altar of my studio ; 
 
 I am too good an artist to be good.' 
 
 She laid reproachful fingers on his lips 
 
 Uttering antagonisms. No such-like creed 
 
 Learnt she in earlier girlhood from Verene, 
 
 Last of a style which welded faith to art. 
 
 Then quick rejoined : ' No gift is given of self. 
 
 Each of myriad descends on those 
 
 By habit fitted. Priests of holy things 
 
 Must live akin to life they show a world. 
 
 For creatures in the snowy-realms are white, 
 
 And verdure of the sunny tropics red, 
 
 The lizard of the green grass-pool is green ; 
 
 All things seem coloured by the colouring 
 
 Of circumstance : man most : art-man e'en more : 
 
 Who, disbelieving good, is paradox ; 
 
 A spot of blackness 'midst the purest snows ; 
 
 Or pallor in the scarlet of the zone ; 
 
 Merest misplacement. On my father's knee
 
 VIA MUNDI, 
 
 First learnt these verities my father's child ; 
 Whence rose Verene ; whence shall my Felix rise.' 
 
 Whereat he sulkier, ' High saint Verene ; 
 
 Evagrius bereft of monkish cowl ; 
 
 The Nestor of our guild. I honour him. 
 
 Yet scorn not one, who but for praise and prize, 
 
 Would spurn scant aid of good or evil ghost 
 
 To paint his picture. Still thy words have force, 
 
 Bespeaking failure ! ' 
 
 Shrilled she, ' Not my words ! ' 
 ' Prophetic words,' sneered he, ' unless per-luck. 
 Artists claim aegis of that demon breath 
 Old wives call poisonous ; some grace withal 
 It adds to destiny, mayhap, dull-starred.' 
 Then, seeing maiden-faith aghast, ended : 
 ' Pardon perverser will.' And she, ' Amen ! ' 
 Whereafter watched they silent parting day 
 Tint mosses ruby ; till eve's chilly dews 
 Intruded as a message to depart. 
 
 So ceased the reign of Delia a space ; 
 
 Who laughed a prophecy, that not for long 
 
 Strained absence should endure ; yet stood he true, 
 
 E'en to vexation of her tyrant will ; 
 
 For scoffers asked, where strayed her parasite. 
 
 In bitter irony, till anger vowed 
 
 A vow to sway this swain as willed her will. 
 
 Art feline is enduring watch to spring 
 
 When time is full. Time waited comes in time. 
 
 33
 
 34 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 Long Delia's eyes, as outposts to her brain, 
 
 Kept steady guard, lest opportunity 
 
 Flit unawares. But, conscious of half power, 
 
 Manoeuvred bye-wards. First, one Delia's wrath 
 
 Enlarged to Felix ; whereupon, a frown. 
 
 Other, how wilder sorrow deeper lies ; 
 
 Whereat, incredence. Yet again a third, 
 
 How slight had sickened true love nigh to death ; 
 
 To which he gave — though looked askance — the lie ; 
 
 Yet met Verena pensively, who bade 
 
 With lissome gaiety of happiest trust. 
 
 Her lover to the morrow's festival — 
 
 Her bridal day — when, amid kith and kin, 
 
 The contract of their union should be sealed 
 
 By priest and notary. He feigned a smile 
 
 Soft from a mouth, whose lips spake gracious things. 
 
 The morrow rose too garishly, when gloom 
 
 Dispelled by slumber, Felix woke to joy ; 
 
 Donned best of doublets ; gathered freshest flowers, 
 
 Hid 'neath whose petals, as a butterfly. 
 
 He placed an heir-loom for a gift of love, 
 
 A ring of five great jewels, varying-hued. 
 
 Matchless and priceless — wrought, men said, for one, 
 
 Who led the flower of chivalry for Christ 
 
 Against the Moslem, whom the Moslem gave 
 
 Their chiefest treasures, honouring a foe 
 
 With lion-heart royal like lion-blood — 
 
 Then quicker as to pulse passed forth abroad. 
 
 There met him one within his porch-way, paled, 
 A thing of misery, who seized his cloak.
 
 VIA MUNDI. 35 
 
 Hissing forth venom tempered to his mood. 
 It swore that Delia lay dying : hours 
 Were now for count of years : one last embrace 
 She craved, ere death made final severance. 
 
 Day breathed yet young. The ceremonial 
 
 Was fixed for noon ; but after, feast and dance, 
 
 With minstrelsies, and revels dear to maids. 
 
 He paused ; for loving care had been to greet 
 
 Verena first of first ; yet pity strove 
 
 Hard against truth. Then followed that which led, 
 
 lU-conscienced, to a door deep-fringed with vines 
 
 Endarkening Delia's bower ; where, low-couched, 
 
 She slumbered ashen, zoned with violet — 
 
 Her robe soft argent, which the flickering day 
 
 A-peep through tendrils, and fruit clusterings, 
 
 Lit to the semblance of a twilight sea — 
 
 Beside her, on a bracket bossy-carved, 
 
 A chalice — chased with golden bacchanals 
 
 Tossing eternal grapes in chubby joy — 
 
 Filled high with vintage juice. He entered still 
 
 To her, whose morn seemed eve, whose touch felt dew, 
 
 Nor found the voice of manhood, for his heart 
 
 Swelled with an anguish irrepressible ; 
 
 So wan she looked. But, gazing deep intent, 
 
 He saw her eyelids rise, then fall to rise ; 
 
 Whereon the whitey lips essayed at speech, 
 
 To fail ; until he kneeling, whispered ' Love ! ' 
 
 Though rosed his forehead for such dual faith. 
 
 Then the dark orbs flashed light, which lied the cheeks, 
 
 For all their pallor. Yet her words came weak :
 
 36 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 ' Once more : and only once : and once for all ! 
 
 Love is my crime of death : so, love, forgive. 
 
 Women love one. Our little life is one, 
 
 And loss of this is loss of that, and all. 
 
 To-day, men tell me, is our day of fate ; 
 
 For each the birthday of a newer life ; 
 
 Mine lethe ; thine, with her a paradise. 
 
 Whose ice quenched fires. Nay, I rob her not — 
 
 Thrice happy suitor having won her suit — 
 
 Of one least joy ; most of one look, one word, 
 
 Who am of lesser worth ; hence worth of naught 
 
 For memory. Nay, crouch not ! I shall go !' 
 
 But he, in agony, burst forth, ' Alas ! 
 
 Was ever wretch so rent ! Wot I not, hearts 
 
 Break from desertion ! ' Quick she answered, ' Look ! 
 
 Yet not to sting thy gaud. Were I not thus 
 
 Another would lie low, as I lie low.' 
 
 Whereat he groaned self-curses, grasped her hand 
 
 Beseechingly. But she in accents kind : 
 
 ' Pass from me sweetheart to sweet joy ; but last. 
 
 Before I pass to blackness, join with me 
 
 A pledge to memories of what has gone.' 
 
 She spake : and pointing touched the chalice rim. 
 
 But he, tear-choking, rose, and lifting cried : 
 
 ' Drink thou,' ' Not so,' she answered, ' Pledge 
 
 My peace in silence. An thou lov'st me, Pledge ! ' 
 
 Who, thus adjured, as one in reverence, 
 
 Raising the chalice, quaffed both long and deep ; 
 
 Then turning lost all consciousness in stare ; 
 
 Dropt the false chalice, swooning prone to earth. 
 
 Whilst she, disguise apart, sprang forth to mirth.
 
 VIA MUNDI. 
 
 37 
 
 And, seizing on his posy, plucked the gift, 
 The ring of five great jewels — recklessly 
 Stamping Verena's flowrets 'neath her foot — 
 And placed it on her finger, triumphing. 
 
 An angered father o'er a weeping child, 
 A gaudy changed to ember day — glee, lay. 
 And tabret hushed, as before thunder leaves — 
 For, noon is after ; banquet hall desert : 
 Guests gone : and rarest crown without a king. 
 
 * * * # # 
 
 That eve a sable form, veiled as a nun, 
 Wandered from home disconsolate and drear, 
 To where cathedral doors were ope, for souls 
 To drag the heft of burdens to Christ's cross ; 
 Verena lonely daughter of Verene.
 
 VIA MALA.
 
 VIA MALA. 
 
 To latest twilight, and encircling arms, 
 
 And lips of silent yet of suasive wealth, 
 
 Felix awoke, oblivious of this past. 
 
 But beating against bars of memory. 
 
 Him Delia served a philtre, blent of sweets, 
 
 Culled from rare spiceries of orient — 
 
 For one on one facts grouped themselves, and blood 
 
 Of a great fury at her treachery 
 
 Swelled veins, which lulled this subtle influence — 
 
 Whereon delectably he dreamed awake. 
 
 As poured she spells of falsehood in his ear, 
 
 Whit'ning her blackness unto semblance snow. 
 
 Anon she played him with the bait, which men 
 Tempts most of all things, lust of others' gold — 
 Who searching found within his doublet's folds 
 A purse well-stored, for faith had brought forth work ; 
 Work, recompense — she knew his viler bent, 
 Whose eye dived into his, so wild, so lost, 
 To rede the force ill reck has on a soul. 
 
 Anon with laughter courting sympathy. 
 She led him, as she would, to where she would, 
 Fool-happy in the languish of deep eyes, 
 Which seemed to answer questions of his own, 
 Where thickest night glared garish as high noon — 
 Without, a darkness felt by houseless men, 
 More grim by contrast with the light within,
 
 42 VIA MALA. 
 
 Flaming of lustres — where was living life, 
 The warmth of pleasures, the hey-day of sin. 
 
 Foremost among the throng of night, and bold, 
 
 Delia with orbits flashing rays of pride. 
 
 Attracted envy ; in whose sable locks 
 
 Entwined a snake of vivid emeralds. 
 
 With ruby eyes, and ruby tongue of fire. 
 
 A robe of velvet, tinted paler peach, 
 
 With broidering of down, half-hid her neck, 
 
 And, sweeping past a dainty stomacher. 
 
 Revealed milk-satin drapery beneath. 
 
 Crossed and re-crossed by bars of rarest lace. 
 
 A golden girdle held a little chain. 
 
 That dangled to her knees, of filagree. 
 
 Whereto swung slow a hollow pierced heart, 
 
 Enamel emblem of the wearer's fate. 
 
 The arch-dusangel of a company, 
 
 Her carriage trode imperial ; for men 
 
 Of first noblesse confessed her puissant rule, 
 
 And grovelled for the glory of her smile, 
 
 Beside her Felix prattled empty words. 
 Intoxicate of brain. From syren lips 
 . Deep draughts of luscious nectar had he quaffed, 
 Till every pulse and fibre felt a-fire. 
 Wherefore she cozened him with phantasies 
 Designed to mould awrong his plastic mind : 
 ' Who wins a fortune wins a golden key, 
 To ope the heart of woman. Weak are we. 
 And cursed with needs, which, satiate, commute
 
 VIA MALA. 43 
 
 To happiness, yet unsupplied to pain ; 
 
 And— I am woman. Can'st thou rede my will ? ' 
 
 Pointed her finger to an inmost room, 
 Where wrapt in silence men were adding gold 
 To gold, to regain gold, their wit had lost. 
 Where harlots broadcast scattered impious gains, 
 The worthless wages of unworth ; and ease 
 Smiled scorn upon the jaundiced brow of care. 
 
 He was her helot, thralled to servitude. 
 Distraught in judgment. Hence, obeyed her will, 
 And tarried not to pass within, and join 
 Players, who played in faith of faithless luck. 
 Impassive to refuse, who had no thought, 
 He did, because he must, as puppets do. 
 
 Fortune is like an eel. Most men may touch, 
 Some handle her, maybe with fingers glib ; 
 But try to grasp her — quick she slips away, 
 For hands to grovel in the mud, and lose 
 The grey thing mixt with greyness of the mud. 
 So Felix fared. Hand tremulous and eye. 
 He watched the strange gyrations of a game. 
 Designed to baffle every law of chance. 
 One favourite massed a pyramid of gold, 
 Whose mind seemed a barometer of fate. 
 Another, as an archer, aimed with care 
 To strike the golden ring, yet paralysed 
 In nerve and eye fell ever far afield. 
 A tliird played hard to win ; won hard to lose. 
 Skill was a fault ; the wildest game sure gain.
 
 44 VIA MALA. 
 
 Eager he watched. Soon urgent seized a chance, 
 
 Risking a trifle. Then the trifle won ; 
 
 As trifles win. But Delia sought his eye, 
 
 And coaxing muttered, * Chary of thy gold ! 
 
 Easy to earn a pound, as earn a groat ! 
 
 No niggards to incaution are we here. 
 
 Grip fate. Nor loose her till her turn is kind.' 
 
 Whereon she took the pieces from his grasp. 
 
 All unresisting ; cast a reckless cast 
 
 Against the round of fortune ; tript her up ; 
 
 Then gathering the spoil, laughed, ' So, faint heart, 
 
 Lack'st thou my courage ! ' He for force of shame, 
 
 Clutching the winnings ventured them in turn. 
 
 And lost. But Delia jeering said, ' My child, 
 
 Thou fightest destiny too cowardly, 
 
 Who didst but stake with that she gave to thee ; 
 
 No risk was there. She yields to naught save risk.' 
 
 For all his flightiness of fevered brain. 
 Instinct proclaimed such fallacy at fault. 
 There was that whispered as a warning voice. 
 How reckless counsel little recks of him 
 To whom the counsel comes. Wherefore he lent 
 A callous ear, played low, and won, and lost. 
 Yet soon at chance he quailed ; for e'en the hand 
 That wont to be so steady with his brush. 
 Shivered as rapid as the pulse's throb 
 Flushing his forehead. Him then Delia drew 
 Forth from the chamber of delirious play, 
 Tenderly chiding for such wilful way. 
 To where within a pleasaunce, softer moss.
 
 VIA MALA. 45 
 
 And thicker leafage, framed an arbour, hid 
 From aught save lamps of other worlds above. 
 
 Her toyinj;^ fingers from his tangled locks, 
 
 In fret of hot unreason, rude he shook 
 
 Too angered for her love. But, bridling she : 
 
 ' Enough. Sir Felix, young, yet not a babe. 
 
 These impotent regrets are babyhood. 
 
 List to my voice, who know that side of life. 
 
 Thou hast but peeped at, purblind nest-fledgling. 
 
 Whose breath is sweet of masses and motetts ! — 
 
 Time was to me they sounded passing sweet. 
 
 I had my span of grace ; but now I feel 
 
 The night, so let me glorify the night — 
 
 If of the halidom on knees a-bent 
 
 Thou prayed'st a gift aright with meaning mind. 
 
 That gift would'st thou obtain. I know thou would 'st. 
 
 Felix, there are two spirits of the air ; 
 
 Alike are both to answer, as to hear ; 
 
 If one will grant thee ghostly benison. 
 
 With priceless virtues little prized of us. 
 
 That other holds the patronage of gold. 
 
 And women's hearts, and all delicious things. 
 
 Say, hast thou lack ? Hast thou no thirst for gold. 
 
 And Delia ? ' 
 
 Whereto he quick rejoined, 
 ' An Felix did such deed, then should he die 
 A Judas-death.' Shrilled she, as one of old, 
 ' Thou shalt not surely die. Nay, I myself 
 Often and often supplicated him,
 
 46 VIA MALA, 
 
 My darkest, falsest, yet mine only friend. 
 
 Alive am I to tell my tale. The hour 
 
 To each is fixt of death, and may not change.' 
 
 ' Granted,' cried he, 'but yet the after-time, 
 
 Priests term eternity, when death is past. 
 
 May prove the ceaseless payment of such debt ! ' 
 
 Answered she not the wisdom of his words. 
 But pressing towards him, gently raised his hand, 
 To thrill with kisses. Then her voice came sweet 
 • What, not for Delia, not for all the love. 
 An ill-used, world-torn heart has spent on thee ! 
 A poor fond dove is she, and wounded sore. 
 Who hoped her mate would build a little nest. 
 And take her to him, that she might find peace.' 
 Thus : deftly trembling, whilst a scalding tear 
 Dropped, as in anguish, on the hand she held. 
 
 Sudden he fell into an ecstacy 
 
 Of rapture too responsive to her lures. 
 
 Picturing futures knit of wealth and love. 
 
 She felt his heart quick beat against her cheek, 
 
 She felt his arm entwine, his scattered locks 
 
 Fall tender-silky, as he stooped to kiss. 
 
 When in an instant the cathedral bell — 
 
 Named Raphael, for that its mighty tones 
 
 Were heard afar by mariners at sea. 
 
 To warn them off th' inhospitable shore — 
 
 This Raphael boomed forth a trinity 
 
 Of brazen sounds, to tell a naughty land 
 
 The evening benediction of the Host.
 
 VIA MALA. 47 
 
 From her he started, as a guilty thing, 
 
 Leaving the kiss unkissed, the word unsaid ; 
 
 For conscience that of memory recalled, 
 
 Which proved, despite the haze of intellect, 
 
 Enough to fill his soul with sense of sin. 
 
 Wherefore his brow he crossed, and mouthed a prayer. 
 
 Scarce able to surmise such changeful mood, 
 
 The wily woman beat her little foot, 
 
 Much to the measure of a saraband. 
 
 Awaiting his return. Yet still apart, 
 
 He mused in silence ; then a wayward lay, 
 
 She wont to sing, burst warbling from her throat : 
 
 ' Chance, for the world is chance, give chance to sing 
 Her see-saw. Now loud tones, now whispering ; 
 To-day we fall, to-morrow rise again. 
 
 ' Chance, for our morn is burnished as of gold ; 
 Dull falls our noon ; our eve bites bitter cold ; 
 And night rolls clouds of over-flooding rain. 
 
 ' Trust to thy surest trust, the turn of fate ; 
 What comes aright can never come too late ; 
 Or love, or wealth, or lordship over men. 
 
 ' Man wills to have, yet has not for his will ; 
 Man wills not have, and yet enjoys his fill ; 
 Where is the balance of thy chance, and when ? ' 
 
 " Say, lover icicle,' she cried, ' dost care 
 
 For Delia's ditty ? What is wrong, chill-heart ? 
 
 Art timorous of the clanging of a bell.
 
 48 VIA MALA. 
 
 Or grievest o'er thy petty money lost ? 
 
 Come, thaw this tongue congealed to melting speech 
 
 Kind lips, ye shall return a kind in kind, 
 
 The sin of overlove by overlove ! ' 
 
 He suffered her embrace, for all his brain 
 Racked with a love that hates, a hate that loves ; 
 Unpardoning her faithlessness, yet moved 
 By faith so faithful as to fail of faith. 
 He suffered her to draw him step by step, 
 Back to the ruin-chamber ; there, to pour 
 A fiercer liquid down his arid throat ; 
 Whereafter, waxed his voice, his frame a-shake 
 For vacuous merriment, his mind alert 
 To angle in the depths of chance for gain. 
 
 Him Delia watching pressed with lying word 
 
 More glorious than Delia of the day, 
 
 In tints of sanguen, orbs dilate on gold 
 
 Intently glistering, which, hardly won, 
 
 Her arts should make a spoil ; no love held she 
 
 For aught save Delia and — blent with wrath. 
 
 For him whilom her lord — beneath the lace, 
 
 Across her bosom folded, lurked a store 
 
 Of hate for men adoring Delia, 
 
 Befitting one, who leagued with powers of hell. 
 
 At first the frenzy of his fevered soul 
 AfTrighted fortune, who the gains returned 
 Before accrued. Then, as this ardour cooled. 
 Loss multiplied on losses, till his purse 
 Was void of all save one gold piece — his last.
 
 VIA MALA. 
 
 Whereon he downcast turned to Delia, 
 
 Whose beauty with impatience was distort. 
 
 ' Poltroon ! ' She charged him, ' Pray, I bid thee pray ! 
 
 Who dreads to win deserves a beggar's lot i ' 
 
 Upon the purse he gazed, he gazed at her — 
 
 Whilst spectre-like Verena crossed his sight, 
 
 Robed as in silver air, with eyes on heaven — 
 
 In dread of commerce ruinous in kind ; 
 
 Nor dared essay. A second time he gazed — 
 
 Despair begriming all his best with filth — 
 
 And Delia urged, ' Have faith to offer prayer. 
 
 Too poor art thou to cherish squeamish fears ! ' 
 
 Again, the third time on his purse he gazed, 
 
 And all the torrent of a demon force 
 
 Welled o'er the flood-gates of his truer self, 
 
 Disrending them. He prayed the horrid prayer. 
 
 Then flung his golden Judas down on chance. 
 
 And won, not twice, nor thrice, nor seven times thrice, 
 
 But thirty-fold. It paled his cheek to win. 
 
 Whilst Delia's lips spake radiant of joy : 
 
 ' Was I not just ? Play, Felix, play, but pray. 
 
 Each venture must be prayed for, or be lost ! ' 
 
 Obedient he praying played, and won. 
 
 Commingling with this giddy company, 
 
 A strange one watching stood, not so the game 
 
 In all its varying issues, as the souls 
 
 Of those, who came to pour their hope a-flood ; 
 
 A plain dark man, arrayed most soberly. 
 
 Cheating keen notice, were it not his face 
 
 49
 
 50 VIA MALA. 
 
 Had fascination, e'en when a false eye 
 Looked downcast, for his eye was everywhere, 
 Reding the widest circle in a glance. 
 This one pierced Felix in his stare, who fast 
 On buying fortune with his very soul, 
 Forgot perception of aught else but gold. 
 
 At length a buzz of envy-curious throats — 
 
 All were amazed at hazard-certainty. 
 
 Which gathered gold on gold, magician-wise — 
 
 Startled the impious dreamer from his trance, 
 
 Delirious of play. He spied the man, 
 
 Sign, as in masonry, to Delia, 
 
 Then felt his flesh a-creep ; he recked not why. 
 
 Those bad eyes haunted him, nor could he flee 
 
 Their rays of steel, which seemed to rive his brain. 
 
 Yet, as before, he staked ; and, having staked, 
 
 Uttered the godless suffrage of hell-speed. 
 
 Whereto the eyes replied, the mouth replied, 
 
 With such an evil smile ; for very awe 
 
 Quaked, as a bird before a snake, his limbs. 
 
 He knew too much. His knowledge made to fear. 
 
 Aghast, he gathered up his golden mass. 
 Oblivious of these latest winnings ; whom 
 Delia pursued with all reproachful words : 
 * Weary of winning ? Fortune's fickle friend ! 
 A nothing hast thou, save this paltry purse, 
 Who wast to have been rich this very night ; 
 I willing so. Wilt rob me of such will ? ' 
 Whereto, he answered, as a thing half scared,
 
 VIA MALA. 51 
 
 ' Unnerved am I, my Delia. A spell drives 
 Cold blood through fevered veins to stop my heart ; 
 Eye-arrows seem to pierce me, shafts of fire, 
 Consuming peace, charring my inmost soul. 
 I hate this lucre — take it — it is thine ! ' 
 
 * Not so ! ' sneered she imperiously. ' No. 
 
 A curse on cowards. An I be not worth 
 
 The bravery of words, I am unworth. 
 
 Be. For I love not shadows. Be, or cease ! ' 
 
 With that she swept from him in majesty. 
 
 Her finger pointing to the evil game. 
 
 Whereafter for entrancement Felix seemed 
 
 In sense himself, yet lifted from himself. 
 
 Dreaming an ugly dream, though hard awake. 
 
 Thralled to obey this subtle influence. 
 
 He feared to act the rebel ; hence his steps 
 
 Bore him beside the gamesters. Then he played. 
 
 But gave his back to those dark fearful eyes, 
 
 Anon which scorched his back ; their rays he felt. 
 
 And writhed in misery. Yet played, and lost, 
 
 For that he dreaded speak that prayer of ill. 
 
 Anon the dark one faced him, glancing scorn ; 
 
 Wherefore across he moved in abject woe, 
 
 A play of tremor playing and despair. 
 
 Who dared not cease his play, nor dared to pray ; 
 
 So added loss to loss till all was lost. 
 
 Then, as the last gold ducat fell away, 
 
 Rolled from his eyes the scales. He was of sin, 
 
 In that vast company alone with sin. 
 
 His sin, his very sin, which he had sinned.
 
 52 VIA MALA. 
 
 At once the man within from guilty sense 
 Failed, loathing every attribute of self. 
 Rose to his lips a curse, a deadly curse, 
 On all the powers of the nether hell, 
 Framed into shape, but not to utterance, 
 When Delia faced him, livid in the wrath 
 Of features altered from their mask of love, 
 VVho took the curse from off his burning tongue, 
 And turned it on him, as a two-edged sword ; 
 Endarkened veins the reflex of her thoughts. 
 Whose love was as whose hate, for each was each. 
 
 ' Mean squameous thing, well dost thou slink apart ! 
 
 Who thoughtest Delia loved thy slimy form, 
 
 Thy scales I loved, Sir Reptile, not thyself, 
 
 Thy scales would I have taken for a prize, 
 
 But not thy poison love. Slaver thy love 
 
 On cold Verena, daughter of Verene, 
 
 That paragon of icy maidenhood : 
 
 For now thy scales are shed, I will no slime ! 
 
 Get to thy muddy earth, grow scales afresh. 
 
 Cast up the earning of a woman's hate. 
 
 Because thou would'st misrate a woman's worth i 
 
 Imo heart had I to give, who have no heart ; 
 
 Yet could have granted thee a paradise. 
 
 For paradise — is all man's being wants. 
 
 Small was the task, and easy, whence to gain 
 
 The vast award of bliss thy soul desired. 
 
 Small ! Yet a coward fears to face his face, 
 
 As spaniels dread a mirror, babes a ghost. 
 
 Girl-hearts the midnight. Brave art thou to win
 
 VIA MALA, 53 
 
 The groats of evil, though a feared of gold ; 
 As if one particle of mortal sin 
 Stained not to judgment, much as sin on sin. 
 Thus, having sold thy heaven, forbear'st the wage 
 A bounteous spirit gives thee for thy soul. 
 Such cowardice thrice merits pains of hell ! ' 
 
 No word he found for answer. All within 
 Paralysed brow and mouth, and glazed his eye. 
 Himself he heard reviled by himself, 
 Thus that her scorn hurt as a little scar, 
 Compared with gashes ruthlessly incised 
 By conscience, keenest lancet of the soul ; 
 Nor cared defence, the verdict being passed. 
 A bitter glance, as casts a stricken bird 
 On one whose arrow has transfixed its breast. 
 And Felix turned away from Delia, 
 And Delia's wiles, and Delia's loveless love. 
 Free with a freedom worse than vassallage. 
 
 He tarried not to seek a purer air — 
 
 Lest guilt a swifter vengeance overtake — 
 
 Seeking for silence as a febrifuge. 
 
 Black was the moon-lost night, and star-bereft, 
 
 No sound save distant laughter, and the bell 
 
 That boomed forth heavily the tones of time. 
 
 Homewards he wended grievous, when a touch — 
 
 Not as of one who followed, or whose path 
 
 Ran anti-parallel, but as of one. 
 
 Who came from heaven upon him, or from hell — 
 
 Made pause the pulse of heart, and beat of step.
 
 54 VIA MALA. 
 
 To quick intensity his nerves had wrought 
 The sequence of events. Lips fain would groan, 
 But that all voice was voiceless, whilst his teeth 
 Chattered a guilty tune at mystery. 
 
 A hand imprinted on him marks ; a tone 
 
 Sepulchral sharp, as wedded to the eyes 
 
 Which pierced his marrow, till he fled their gaze, 
 
 Began an utterance, ears could but hear : 
 
 * Sealed are some mortals mine ; some Christ's ; and some 
 
 Wait for the seal of fire, or seal of light. 
 
 Their deeds according. Thou art sealed to me, 
 
 Felix, by thine own pact. Am I not just. 
 
 Who mete the measure equal to man's price 
 
 Full to the marge ? Learn thou, my latest friend, 
 
 There is that is not true to good or bad, 
 
 That dallies with a coronal of heaven. 
 
 As with a cornucopia of earth ; 
 
 Too volatile to choose, he lives, and dies 
 
 A paradox, sweet life a martyrdom, 
 
 In using barely half his lust, and will ; 
 
 His death a severance from all he would. 
 
 Yet dared not, own. Thus punished here on earth, 
 
 Punished hereafter, his is total loss. 
 
 AH have their span of time, which wisdom spends, 
 
 Or for a present, or a future good. 
 
 For sweetness of indulgence of to-day. 
 
 Or, for to-morrow's halcyon promises. 
 
 A chalice has been placed in either hand ; 
 
 Fragrant the left is, luscious, ruby-red ; 
 
 Paler the right, and deeper, yet so cold,
 
 VIA MALA, 55 
 
 Thou carest not drink it now — it is so cold ! 
 
 A voice bids, ' Take, and leave or all of one, 
 
 Or all of other.' Cautious dost thou sip 
 
 A sippet of the left, and find'st it sweet. 
 
 Blessing the cup which holds so dear a draught ; 
 
 Again thou tastest ; yet again, once more ; 
 
 But not a tern of that shall pass thy lips. 
 
 Before the fever of the fiery wine 
 
 Has tired thy weak inconstancy ; and thus 
 
 Thou cast'st it from thee, seeking for a draught, 
 
 Pure, gelid, tasteless, from the deeper cup. 
 
 To find that this has vanished from thy grasp, 
 
 And night descends upon thy soul athirst. 
 
 Felix ! Be thorough. Surely thou art wise ? 
 
 Hast tasted of the merry ruby wine. 
 
 And art a-feard to drain it to the dregs ? 
 
 Or, would'st thou drag long penitential days — 
 
 Stale bread, hard stones, mass oft, and lack of sleep — 
 
 Then rise at last a castaway cajoled. 
 
 Because this night thou did'st a mortal sin ? 
 
 I say not, ' Choose ; ' for that no choice hast thou. 
 
 Rather, be thorough. Banish futile hope. 
 
 Take that is thine ; nor grieve for issues past.' 
 
 Moaned uncontainedly the young man's breast, 
 
 In faith of words so evil as to seem 
 
 The nightmare of a destiny, yet true. 
 
 This stranger held a personality. 
 
 No hope could doubt. And thus against his God, 
 
 And all the loving mercy of his God,
 
 56 
 
 VIA MALA. 
 
 With seven times seventy pardons of misde eds, 
 His soul believed the lying of despair. 
 
 He spake : ' Know I full well, whose wiles have soiled 
 The argent garment, angels wove for me. 
 A feast has been prepared, and I am bid, 
 Nor may I enter, till that robe be cleansed.' 
 
 To whom the voice, ' Not soiled : say, rent athwart. 
 Where are the angel hands to join such rent ? 
 Take Felix hence away, and cast him forth 
 To outer darkness — ' 
 
 ' Bad as I am bad,' 
 Cried Felix angered, ' ruined as my soul, 
 I will not listen to Christ's words from thee ! ' 
 
 Essayed he then to pass ; but this unnamed 
 
 Impeded progress, gripping at his arm, 
 
 Till thew and sinew strained for violence, 
 
 Whilst in his ear poured breath of burning words : 
 
 ' Drink of the sweeter draught, while drink thou may'st, 
 
 Drink, and be happy till thy latest hour ! ' 
 
 ' I drink not, for I care not,' he replied, 
 
 ' Give back Verena ; give mine innocence ! 
 
 Thy pleasure is pain-pleasure, worse than pain, 
 
 No pleasure, but the paradise of fools,' 
 
 ' Was not it writ,' rejoined the evil voice, 
 ' When, once the door is shut ? ' ' Shut is thy door. 
 Verena were she thine would be, as thou. 
 Without and hope-shorn — now is she within — 
 For white, like hers, is fouled by touch of filth, 
 Is such thy wish ? '
 
 VIA MALA. 57 
 
 Moaned he, ' Not ever so. 
 Yet oh ! to part from her so doubly dear, 
 Gentle as tenderest verdure of a spring 
 Nigh unto summer. Cartes, I am lost. 
 This world is but a prison's outer court, 
 Whence I may view with ghastly prescience, 
 The rack, the screw, the pincers, and the fires ; 
 Whilst thou, my jailer, bidst me tramp across, 
 With ever quickening footsteps to the gate. 
 Which leads to torment. Then I turn mine eyes 
 To see her mourning, mourning for my soul. 
 Ah ! love, would love could purge her love by love, 
 Then should'st thou free thy prisoner of wrong ! 
 Ah ! love, if fooled, I am a falser fool, 
 A vile apostate both from Christ, and thee, 
 My punishment is equal to my sin.' 
 
 Then, as the tide of thought came volving in. 
 
 With billows of remembrance, with ideas 
 
 Profound as human heart can dive into. 
 
 He could not curse — souls danmed disdain to curse — 
 
 But wailing gnashed his teeth, and tore his hair. 
 
 In impotence of ruin, and of rage. 
 
 Whereat the evil one abandoned words. 
 For scoffing sounds, and taunts of merriment. 
 The angel of despair gloats o'er despair. 
 E'en as the glorious host of heaven, when 
 The penitence of one poor penitent 
 Has reached the mercy seat of God, rejoice. 
 But soon this storm subsided, and true tears 
 Fell fast and tender, as a summer's rain,
 
 58 VIA MALA. 
 
 When first the heart-cloud of a firmament 
 
 Has burst, as if in anguish, whilst the sky 
 
 Seems pouring all its life upon the earth. 
 
 Then faltered Felix weary words of woe ; 
 
 • Now know I that I should have known before, 
 
 Between this heart, so fire-athirst for love, 
 
 i\nd her pure self, enthroned in purity, 
 
 A gulf is fixed. I may not go to her, 
 
 Nor she from thence return to one defiled. 
 
 This debt I owe myself, and Delia ; 
 
 Nor blame I thee, fell wright of human wrong, 
 
 More than the beast I blame athirst for blood. 
 
 Thou but obeyest thine instincts. I have sinned.' 
 
 Whereto the evil One made low response ; 
 ' I give good measure, paying debts in full. 
 I offer wage for service ; few refuse. 
 Save of hypocrisy. The many serve, 
 Choosing their quality of recompense ; 
 Or luxury, or gold, or rank, or love, 
 Or, best, the diamond life-lustre, fame.' 
 
 Then trembled Felix, as the tender string 
 
 When sounds a nearer concord to its tone, 
 
 Re-echoing : ' Fame ! for fame is artist-life. 
 
 Since love, the angel of my first estate. 
 
 Has vanished out of hope, nought else is left 
 
 To live for, save such fame as lustres life. 
 
 I am an artist ready for success. 
 
 There is where none excel me, yet there is 
 
 That may be wrenched from me by pious fraud. 
 
 For piety our prince has set a prize,
 
 VIA MALA. 59 
 
 And skill in painting ; most, for piety. 
 Thus who can reproduce in colouring 
 The mad imaginings of one that's mad — 
 Whose brain long since has gone to satisfy 
 The cravings of a maciated form — 
 True to mad memory, him shall the prince 
 Exalt, as chiefest of men art-inspired ; 
 Be it his Christ is Anti-Christ. It makes 
 My artist nature boil with injury. 
 Art is not copy, nor of act, nor scene. 
 Of extern things in every gorgeous tint, 
 Least still of fancies fraught by other brains. 
 Art is within : who has her must create.' 
 
 Whereat a laugh of scorn, and then the voice : 
 
 ' I know, I know, few thoughts I may not know. 
 
 Evagrius is mad. But, what is mad ? 
 
 Art too is haply supernatural. 
 
 And Felix has a gift of power and skill. 
 
 Yet Felix needs the bare reward of art, 
 
 Consentient praise above all praise of tongues — • 
 
 To be, to be confessed, to be the first. 
 
 This will I grant thee, as I gave thee gold. 
 
 In answer to a cross ungracious prayer, 
 
 The sourest tribute to my sovereignty. 
 
 Fame is thy wish. Fame shalt thou have, and fame 
 
 Of thine own-self to satisfy thyself. 
 
 Thy brush shall paint this very madman's dream ; 
 
 Yet thou shalt think it out, and thought shall guide 
 
 Each stroke, each line, each shade, each pencilling ; 
 
 So, that Evagrius shall own the whole,
 
 6o VIA MALA. 
 
 The very substance of his shadow-dream, 
 And all shall herald Felix premier.' 
 
 He thought, but not for long, then made reply ; 
 ' Thy words have guaged my loftiest desires. 
 I crave an homage for my proper worth. 
 Yet if I know thee, as I know, I know, 
 Thou would'st not proffer of thy charity 
 The laurel of a life, more rich than mines, 
 Or pearls, or rubies, or aught else save love. 
 Jew-like thou lendest helpless borrowers. 
 To be a myriad-fold thy loan repaid. 
 Nor would'st advance except on usury.' 
 
 Again a laugh of scorn : again the voice 
 Murmured, as distant whisper of a breeze, 
 Which, though so gentle, presages a storm ; 
 ' Fearest thou to borrow ? Dost distrust my word ? 
 Then lend thou me, Sir Starveling, but one groat ! 
 Thou can'st not — for thy lips refused a prayer, 
 Not e'en to save the dribble of thine all — 
 Lend thou, I ask but for one sorry groat !' 
 
 ' I cannot, for I have not,' Felix groaned, 
 
 ' Thy logic is conclusive. Die I must, 
 
 Or have ; and death to me is gain of hell. 
 
 My art must serve thy will. Say, how, and when. 
 
 This bad success might best accrue to me, 
 
 Thy thrall being ready !' 
 
 ' No delay with me,' 
 Echoed the voice responsive to his word. 
 ' Ere the first sun-ray in thy studio
 
 VIA MALA 6l 
 
 Has overshot the blind horizon's bar, 
 This likeness shall be wrought in very truth, 
 Or else all pact with thee is violate. 
 And I release thee.' 
 
 Then the grip which kept 
 His arm, as in an iron vice, relaxed. 
 Ere Felix gave assent half-willed ; and next. 
 Vanished the form invisible, whilst words 
 As from the nether world, distinct arose, 
 Which bade him quickly seek his studio. 
 Arrange his easel for an altar-piece 
 To be depicted ; then to take a brush. 
 And palette, with his colours, in the dark — 
 It must be deadly dark, or all would fail — 
 To stand, and pray for aid to paint aright 
 The very vision of Evagrius ; 
 And, as his prayer, so should his painting be. 
 
 The echoes of the evil voice had died, 
 
 Waving the silence of this night of sin, 
 
 When the cathedral boomed uncertainly 
 
 A tale unrecked ; so waste his ideas, 
 
 Who weary traced his homeward way in shame. 
 
 To feel his home un-homed, and self un-selfed. 
 
 And earth a lightless earth, devoid of heaven. 
 
 Long hours, oblivious of their day-ward march, 
 Verena knelt with palms that might not part. 
 Before the great high altar. Sensitive 
 His cause she pleaded, by a Mass of tears —
 
 62 VIA MALA. 
 
 A spiritual Mass of sacrifice — 
 
 Transported to the threshold of a throne, 
 
 Where prayer ascends, which Satan cannot hear ; 
 
 For maiden's love is a pellucid stream, 
 
 Pure, born of heaven-clad mountains, prone it flows 
 
 In azure cataracts, and opes a path 
 
 Through clefts of rock, and barriers of sand ; 
 
 Naught can withhold its progress to the sea. 
 
 Whence as he passed into his studio. 
 
 Ripe unto wrongfulness, and bond of sin. 
 
 Who dared not dare to live, yet dared to die, 
 
 Verena virginal in innocence, 
 
 Dared to forthshadow as an offering 
 
 Of imagery. That which strengthens souls 
 
 To fight the Prince of Evil, and prevail.
 
 VIA EXSPES.
 
 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 A horror of the night involved the brain — 
 
 As mists perceptive sense — of Felix chilled, 
 
 Whose frame responded to vicissitudes 
 
 Wrought from within. He searched his studio, 
 
 To find a canvas-covered easel fixed, 
 
 His colours mingled, and his palette placed. 
 
 With brushes, and all necessary things 
 
 At hand to use ; that so, despite the dark, 
 
 Each one particular seemed tangible. 
 
 For masterly was evil handiwork. 
 
 He stood as one who totters on the brink 
 
 Of suicide above an onward stream, 
 
 Whose motion fascinates its victim's eye. 
 
 To draw him from his equilibrium, 
 
 Then fall upon its bosom, and to sink. 
 
 Thus, lured of lies by specious influence. 
 
 He deemed himself accurst from paradise, 
 
 And love, and truth, and all, save hollow fame. 
 
 Oblivious that the great are merciful. 
 
 The most sublime in mercy most sublime ; 
 
 Nor comprehending pardon as first-born 
 
 Of power ; for that black guilt obscured his soul. 
 
 He stood : and musing wailed a feeble dirge. 
 The de profmidis of a worn despair. 
 
 ' Hard is belief to one who holds to right. 
 And harder doubt for him with soul a-wrong.
 
 66 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 He knows not dark, who never saw the light, 
 Nor discord, who has never heard a song. 
 
 ' For ignorance and innocence are best. 
 To know is most of loss, and least of gain ; 
 And the insensate are the happiest. 
 Feeling no pleasure, they endure no pain. 
 
 ' He lies, who says that man can master fate, 
 For who can combat with a foe unseen, 
 When to rebel is but to aggravate 
 The bad, that is to be, as it hath been ? 
 
 * There is that lives, and lives a life of death ; 
 There is that dies, yet dying is not free ; 
 A prisoner until his latest breath 
 Of fell despond, of hopeless agony.' 
 
 Lapsed from his grasp the brush upon the board, 
 Who groped to find it ; then his finger touched 
 The vial of a ruby vintage wine. 
 Perchance his varlet placed for him to drink, 
 Ere courting sleep. This then he hapless seized, 
 And poured with haste adown an arid throat. 
 But first the wine made dance his brain ; whereon 
 That he must act, or rave, appeared his lot. 
 Do with his hand, or break with sanity 
 And hold of self, self being more than will. 
 It seemed as if some spell were drawing him 
 Reluctant forward ; where, he had no thought ; 
 And ' Christ ! ' was on his lip, old mother-word 
 A gentle voice had taught his baby-tongue ;
 
 VIA EXSPES. 67 
 
 But something checked ' The Christ ! ' he would have cried, 
 
 And something choked his utterance^ whereon 
 
 Rolled back remembrance in a flux of guilt. 
 
 A Christless, a rejected thing, he felt, 
 
 A convict sentenced, and before the time, 
 
 The sport of devilry, the dead of love. 
 
 To whom annihilation would be peace, 
 
 Existence punishment ; whereof the sense 
 
 Broke forth in voice : 
 
 ' O Spirit of the Air — 
 Because I cannot as I could, yet can 
 Beyond the potency of human force. 
 By reason of an influence from below — 
 Give energy to paint this vision-scene, 
 The passion of the One Divine, I loved 
 With wayward, faulty, yet with honest love, 
 Until a woman turned me traitor — as, 
 They say, a woman ruined all our race — 
 Whence heedless I deserted to the foe, 
 And so must die a never-ending death ! 
 Grant me this work. I reck not of the fame, 
 The honour, and the title, and the wealth ; 
 Without Verena, and mine innocence. 
 These gauds are nauseous. Yet grant this work 
 To dull my recollection ; to distract 
 Thought from the future ; least perchance that men, 
 When I am lost, may own my loss a loss.' 
 
 Then sound and sense as of a torrid wind 
 
 Filled the apartment, volving all around 
 
 With waves of warmth, which seemed to ebb and flow
 
 68 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 Disturbed by motion. After : each attained 
 Its proper level, and in quietude 
 The evil voice — now severed from the form, 
 Which late caused horror by its grip of strength- 
 Though disembodied, still in tone the same, 
 To take his brush commanded him, and dip 
 Haphazard into colour, as in faith. 
 Then copy truly what his eye should see 
 Life-size. No need of skill, or thought, or care. 
 Or study, only for an energy 
 With that, which should unerringly direct. 
 A force should make him — did he yield his will- 
 Depict with accurate fidelity 
 Little by little, part on part, ere morn. 
 In full fulfilment of the evil pact. 
 The very vision of Evagrius. 
 
 But FeHx faltered, ' I would view this scene. 
 Thou may'st propel me as a being blind 
 To limn in darkness utter ; yet, I vow, 
 Art-instinct, hitherto my truest guide, 
 AV^ould fail, had I not seen, and felt the whole.' 
 
 Then said the spirit, ' Felix, close thine eyes ! ' 
 Who thus adjured all-tremulous obeyed. 
 Sudden the darkness changed to garish red. 
 Amazed he oped his eyes. Then, all was dark. 
 Anon : he shut them, when again blood red. 
 As though he passed into a sunset world, 
 Where all was harvest, all was harvest-eve ; 
 A moment more, and waving crosses moved
 
 VIA EXSPES. 69 
 
 In air athwart his features, numberless ; 
 But then a speck in this horizon red, 
 A tiny speck, advancing into size, 
 Revealed a heavy cross, and firm aplant, 
 In colour olive-green against the blood ; 
 A second nearer, and it showed a form, 
 Black as a demon, hung thereon as Christ ; 
 A very spectre, horrid as a jest. 
 The shadow of a substance, though opaque. 
 Vividly awful on the vermeil ground. 
 Yet meaningless, as figures rased by time. 
 Which gibbet faith that was, and is not now. 
 
 Then laughed the voice : ' Thou hast thy will, O man ! 
 See, the eidolon of The Crucified ! ' 
 
 Whereto he answered, ' Fiend ! This is a lie — 
 
 I am a painter, yet thou show'st me tincts 
 
 Unlike or fact, or fancy — born of hate, 
 
 The ghastly figment of a mockery, 
 
 A figure figureless as char or dust, 
 
 A picture of The Picture pictureless. 
 
 This sorry jibing at The Sacrifice 
 
 Beyond our reverence ill-satisfies 
 
 Either the retina of eye, or soul.' 
 
 To him there came response, ' Thou shalt repent 
 This falsity to me, who am thy Hege, 
 No man can serve two masters. Thou hast one, 
 Strong to reward and punish. Have a care ! 
 But yesterday thou mightest praise and pray, 
 Drawing celestial grace upon thy soul ;
 
 yo VIA EXSPES. 
 
 An age ago I too might love, and keep 
 
 A coronal and throne in realms of light, 
 
 But for rebellion. Therefore do I hate, 
 
 And lust to speak all blasphemies against 
 
 The enemy who crushed me to the fire. 
 
 Yet fires cannot annihilate within 
 
 This spirit rebel. I have lures to lure 
 
 Poor paltry things, for whom the cross was raised ; 
 
 Such as is Felix. These become my thrall, 
 
 And must perforce do service.' 
 
 Ceasing speech, 
 The hot-breath of the voice devoid of form 
 Smote on the cheek of Felix as a brand, 
 Which forced him writhe, and groan, and curse, and writhe 
 As if an iron entered to his soul. 
 He felt of endless bondage the first pangs, 
 An earnest of the time and pain to come, 
 Who smarted with the smart of one forlorn. 
 
 Then followed words : ' Obedience is wise, 
 Resistance futile, to a destiny. 
 I gave thee choice of love, or wealth, or fame. 
 Fame was the compact struck. Now must I pay 
 This debt in full. I risk no forfeiture. 
 The scene thou hast to paint, it is not well 
 For eyes to gaze upon, lest eyes mar work. 
 Perchance I may not call it from the past. 
 I have my province, as the troubled sea 
 Boundaries impassable. But close thine eyes — 
 What see'st thou, Felix ? '
 
 VIA EXSPES. 7' 
 
 He, with closed lids, 
 Responded, ' Sky — a hideous low'ring sky — 
 An elemental miracle of dread.' 
 
 ' Work,' shrilled the voice, ' forthwith, for time has sped ; 
 We have but till the dawning of the day ; 
 The night is too far spent, the day too nigh ! ' 
 
 Whereafter Felix sudden lost control. 
 
 And, as the epileptic, moved astray 
 
 From purpose, and from unity of will, 
 
 With hand and finger ; guided helplessly 
 
 His brush laid on the paint, and shaped the shapes 
 
 With all the skill of habit ; colours too 
 
 He mingled with unwitting prescience, 
 
 Nor trowed he azure light, or vermeil shade. 
 
 Yet knew the section of a scene increased, 
 
 From handiwork he felt to be as art, 
 
 True to the truth beheld with closed eyes — 
 
 When open all was darkness. So he wrought. 
 
 Tolled the cathedral bell a trinity 
 
 Of tones, which marked the sure advance of time, 
 
 To Felix, and Verena. Blanched was she 
 
 By exquisite presentiment, unmixt 
 
 With chill unfaith that dallies with a doubt ; 
 
 Whose greater love gave greater cognizance 
 
 Of danger undefined, and nigh to death 
 
 For her's by right. She knelt because of right 
 
 Indissoluble, as a sacrament — 
 
 The mystery of hearts that pulse at one. 
 
 Though seas of life or death may intervene —
 
 72 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 And prayed, nor ceased to pray, but tremulous 
 Needs must sigh forth the essence of her soul ; 
 So strong the sympathy of tender love ! 
 Whilst he : he laboured, till his canvas told 
 A Somewhat copied — what, or true, or false, 
 Resemblance of the vision, or of naught. 
 Impervious darkness failed to testify. 
 Whate'er it was, was done. 
 
 Then said the voice, 
 ' This part is as a miniature of fact. 
 Evagrius shall witness to thy skill. 
 But close again thine eyes. What see'st thou now ? ' 
 He gazed, and made response, ' A trunk of wood 
 Rough-hewn, and round, like to a mountain pine ; 
 Whereon a parchment scroll, inscribed with words. 
 I know those words ; I tell thee not those words. 
 Writ in the threefold language of mankind. 
 Mind, revelation, and the force of will. 
 But hark ! A-far I hear a melody ! 
 Surely it is a Kyrie wailing sweets ? 
 Were I not where I am, and what I am, 
 Well might this be the precinct of a heaven, 
 Whereto was wafted on an holy breath 
 The prayer as of Verena glorified. 
 Again. Again. It thrills my every pulse. 
 This echo of the only voice I love ! ' 
 
 ' False fool ! ' The spirit scoffed, ' Blaspheme not me. 
 Nor prate of Kyries born of graveyard hope ! 
 Is not thy judgment sealed, thy mercy past,
 
 VIA EXSPES. 73 
 
 Thy small probation proved against thyself? 
 Thy cable hast thou cut, thine anchor lost, 
 Thy bark is far adrift from light or land. 
 And thou would'st turn a torrent with a word ! 
 A word has feeble force against a fact.' 
 
 *QC 
 
 ' Sound came to me' cried Felix. 
 
 ' 'Tis the owl,' 
 Replied the spirit, ' Much a friend of mine, 
 A priest among the birds, who hoots his mass 
 In plainest song for due repose of souls. 
 No time is left for parley. To thy work ! 
 Dost see aught else besides the wood and scroll ? ' 
 
 * A triple crown of thorns, of rending thorns. 
 Environing an head that's fallen low 
 
 Upon the chest, as bowed by heaviest weight. 
 
 O ghastly cruelty ! Can these be thorns ? 
 
 Man ne'er beheld such thorns ! An this be truth, 
 
 How terrible is truth ! Reality, 
 
 If realised, would turn the roses grey. 
 
 And change the smile of gaiety to tears. 
 
 Make the young old, the old in innocence 
 
 As little children, veil the garish sun, 
 
 That men might walk in twilight, and in fear.' 
 
 * Cease, weak emotion,' then the voice exclaimed, 
 ' Thy work is slow — Nay, Felix, speed thou must. 
 This fame, I proffer, is no worthless gift, 
 
 That one should dally with it ! '
 
 74 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 Felix groaned, 
 ' Alas ! It is not I, who paint. I gaze 
 With eyelids closed ; and gazing can but feel 
 Through me one working as an instrument, 
 To do with, as thou wilt that I should do. 
 Being no ruler of my hand, or mind.' 
 
 Then came there silence painful to be borne. 
 
 As Felix traced the coronal of blood ; 
 
 But next this cruel sight dissolved, and rose 
 
 Before his vision in its tender death — 
 
 Much as a face of some forgotten friend, 
 
 Known and. beloved a long long time ago 
 
 In earliest infancy, before that mind 
 
 Had learnt the cognizance of aught but love — 
 
 The Face divine, that he had idolised. 
 
 Because it was so true, it was so kind ; 
 
 This face was marred, far more than any man's 
 
 Of all who suffered from the hate of man. 
 
 In grandeur ghastly loomed His wreath of blood. 
 
 And laceration of those loving eyes. 
 
 Which wept for her he loved, Jerusalem ; 
 
 With furrowing of cheeks, that wont to smile 
 
 Upon the children of his murderers ; 
 
 And rending of the lips, which spake such words, 
 
 As never man before had spake to man. 
 
 Since voice was framed to tone, and tone to speech, 
 
 And speech to discords, or to harmonies. 
 
 Poor hell-bound Felix trembled, whilst soft tears 
 Coursed down his cheeks ; for very agony
 
 VIA EXSPES. 75 
 
 Chill dew-drops stood upon his brow ; his heart 
 Beating like angry billows on the strand ; 
 As in an instant to his wond'ring ears 
 Arose the old nowel of Bethlehem, 
 When shepherds were abiding in the field, 
 Feeding their flocks by night ; and suddenly 
 The countless stars became the host of heaven. 
 And sang their tri-une antiphon of praise : 
 Excelsis gloria ; in terra pax ! 
 
 The sound still sounded as Verena's voice, 
 In sweetest cadences, and truest tones ; 
 It stayed the spell of evil for the nonce — 
 For melody creates a harmony. 
 And music is of God — whence sudden fell 
 Impassive on the board his brush, while rang 
 Delicious strains, attuned to holy words, 
 Through ears that listened almost unto hope, 
 Till ceased their echo. Then the power of ill 
 Resumed its rule, impatient of delay. 
 
 ' A counter-potency,' the spirit cried. 
 
 To mine keeps pressing, Felix, on thy soul. 
 
 As jealous of the fame I will for thee. 
 
 Yet, courage ! It is not my way to lose 
 
 By reason of the warblings of girl-throats. 
 
 Though time be short, still shall thy task be done.' 
 
 But Felix : ' I have heard a Gloria, 
 
 And hearing was entranced. All is so strange. 
 
 I am no ruler of my hand or mind.'
 
 y6 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 Whereto bore testimony eye and brush. 
 Each in obedience to a mastery limned 
 The horrors of the Sacred Countenance, 
 Its sanguen tears, Its suffering supreme. 
 Till sorrow for such sorrow poured a flood 
 Of human sympathy with grief divine. 
 
 Again the scene dissolved ; when he beheld 
 The right arm stretched, as to embrace a world ; 
 With palm, which oft had healed man's misery, 
 Now pierced through and through, a gory sight ; 
 And fingers, that had touched to raise the dead. 
 Had broken that now brake indeed of men. 
 Had raised the chalice of His precious blood. 
 Distent with pain, in hue a livid grey. 
 Again burst welling from his soul hot tears ; 
 And, as they dropt a sacrifice abroad, 
 Once more his brush escaped unwittingly 
 From trembling palms, the while a sound he heard 
 Tris-archangelic : 
 
 ' Sanctus Dominus, 
 Sanctus Deus Sabaoth, pleni sunt 
 CcbH et terra gloria Tua ! ' 
 
 Whereat the evil spirit moaned in wrath : 
 
 •With morning morning light my power has its term. 
 
 What hinders thee of harm ? ' 
 
 Then Felix cried, 
 ' No harm, but joy. I hear Verena sing
 
 VIA EXSPES. 77 
 
 A sanctus to an old, old melody, 
 Men say Augustin learned of Monica.' 
 
 Ensued not words, but of a hotter blast 
 
 A breath against the young man's cheek smote fierce, 
 
 Until it burnt again ; wherefore he grasped 
 
 His brush perforce, and helpless strove to paint 
 
 As heretofore, the slave of blackest art. 
 
 Next rose before his eye the further arm. 
 
 With hand, alike its fellow, pierced and torn — 
 
 Whose palm blessed little ones ; whose love had washed 
 
 The feet of friends, that all forsook and fled — 
 
 So delicately pure, befitting Him, 
 
 Whose medicine a word, whose cure a touch. 
 
 Who holds the life that is, the life to come. 
 
 And still was Felix energised to fuse 
 
 Strange chrome upon the canvas, till his wrist 
 
 Ached from the strain, as though the nerves would rive. 
 
 Time and black art contending for a goal. 
 
 Soon Raphael rang forth four solemn tones. 
 
 Before again his clangor boomed through space, 
 
 The sun should have arisen on a world. 
 
 One ray of splendour from whose van of day, 
 
 And Felix stood released of deadly pact. 
 
 Be it the picture still was incomplete. 
 
 Verena felt — as of presentiment — 
 
 A fatal crisis both for hers and her, 
 
 Whence, prompted by an instinct not of earth, 
 
 Sang she in cadences of earnest trust, 
 
 But lone in the cathedral, and before
 
 78 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 The altar of her inmost faith prostrate, 
 At intervals the eucharistic words, 
 Sounds borne afar by angels ministrant 
 To Felix' ears, a potent counter-spell. 
 Whereby was exorcised the demon force. 
 
 Ere yet each echo of this bell had ceased, 
 
 Felix perceived the Sacred Body scarred 
 
 Of Him, who hung upon the accursed tree — 
 
 All-dazzling to his soul — with memory 
 
 Of Mary, pierced by the sword of woe, 
 
 Beholding That, he now beheld in awe ; 
 
 Chiefly the left wound of the soldier's spear, 
 
 His Holy Heart which rent, and ope'd the spring 
 
 Increasing to a fountain for mankind 
 
 Of blood and water, graces twain to cleanse 
 
 Sin and uncleanness ; so that His redeemed 
 
 Should meet Him, clad in vesture, white — as light, 
 
 Unflecked by clouds, albeit clouds of snow — 
 
 Without one spot to dull their purity. 
 
 Piteous the aspect, yet implete with love. 
 
 So bounteous flowed the torrent from His side ; 
 
 Whence Felix, conscience-crushed of mortal sin, 
 
 In anguish of despair, a-kin to hope, 
 
 Shrilled loud, ' One drop, dear Lord, one drop of blood, 
 
 To purge my soul from wilfulness of wrong ! ' 
 
 Then answered him Verena's voice once more. 
 
 Trilling angelic words: 
 
 ' Benedictus 
 Qui venit Domini in nomine ! '
 
 VIA EXSPES. 79 
 
 This thrice. And thrice the brush fell from his hand, 
 
 Obedient to the stronger strength of good ; 
 
 Whereat belched forth the evil breath of fire 
 
 Deep imprecations, as from nether hell. 
 
 ' Traitor to God, and me ! Thou doubly false, 
 
 Who hast betrayed both deceitfully. 
 
 Selling thy birthright for an harlot's kiss, 
 
 Then willing to cajole the prince of lies. 
 
 To grant all but thy paltry price — for naught ; 
 
 The price thou ratest for eternity. 
 
 Think thou to gain the gain, and lose the loss. 
 
 Enjoy the fame, yet to escape thy bond ? 
 
 Not easy to be cozened is that one 
 
 Men justly dread, as serfs a puissant liege. 
 
 Stout hearts the whirlpool. I, the giant, stand. 
 
 Art thou the David to out-general 
 
 With nature's armour, and unblest of God, 
 
 The captain of Philistia's soldiery ? 
 
 Nay, quail not, caitiff ! Fear is luxury 
 
 Compared with torment. In my prison-house 
 
 Are chains, and fires, and all things perilous, 
 
 Reserved by right of a divine decree. 
 
 Not for the murderer, and profligate. 
 
 Nor for the heart-whole sinners, whom I love — 
 
 Decoy birds, as is Delia — but for those, 
 
 Who knew their Master's will, and did it not ! ' 
 
 To him made answer Felix, yet in awe : 
 
 ' No power had'st thou at all, were it not given 
 
 Of law inscrutable as death or life. 
 
 I, were my conscience as my conscience was.
 
 8o VIA EXSPES. 
 
 Would fain disrupt this cruel bond of fame, 
 Thy compact forced on me, scarce ratified 
 By will of mine. I own, I did but plead, 
 Had I a choice of love, or wealth, or fame — 
 Being debarred of love, nor prizing wealth — 
 My better nature would decide on fame. 
 Say'st thou, I have but three alternatives ? 
 Grant me a fourth — of innocence ! I vow, 
 I choose the fourth, e'en though my mortal sin 
 May earn me condemnation after death. 
 Thy bribe I spurn. Rather the pain of right. 
 Rather the cell, the fast, with watch and scourge. 
 The quietude of penitence and peace. 
 Than all the false delights within a world ! 
 So deep is my distress, my hate of sin.' 
 
 A gibe of cruel, yet of eager, scorn 
 
 Pealed through his chamber, harsh, and long, and loud, 
 
 ^^^hilst night felt darkening to more than night ; 
 
 Whereafter for the nonce the spell increased, 
 
 His task seemed doubly tasked, the evil art 
 
 O'er-taxed his energy, and drew his mind 
 
 Back to the picture well nigh perfected. 
 
 And then appeared distent the Sacred Feet, 
 
 By iron penetrate, supporting limbs 
 
 To ease the agony of rifted nerves, 
 
 Convex towards the knees, but macerate 
 
 By scourgings thousand-fold of weighted lash — 
 
 A miracle of horror, such that voice 
 
 Of conscious guilt, exclaimed, ' Behold the man ! ' — 
 
 Those feet, which trode the mountain all alone,
 
 VIA EXSPES. 8 1 
 
 In Jordan's mystic stream of old baptised, 
 Now fixed a spectacle for earth and heaven. 
 
 On this the remnant part he had but glanced — 
 
 Which, if complete, wrought was the altar-piece, 
 
 And, being so, the mortgage of his soul 
 
 Done past redemption, for the price was paid — 
 
 Already by his brush grew glistering 
 
 The canvas with a tinct of gory red. 
 
 When shrill, but sweet, as of an angel trump, 
 
 Verena's tones brought music to his ear, 
 
 Nor ceased, as in an ecstacy of song : 
 
 ' Ag7ius Dei.'' But next, a softer sound : 
 
 And then — '■Dona nobis pacem ! ' — not e'er — 
 
 Since music, as the word of God, first taught 
 
 ?Iis earlier instinct all the better things 
 
 Hid in the undefined- had hearing felt 
 
 The might of song. It warmed his soul to think, 
 
 That such a strain of holy melody, 
 
 Poured forth in truth, prefigured victory. 
 
 'Twas even so. Straightway his master-arm 
 Fell paralysed, and lost to motive power. 
 His fingers loosed the brush. His palette dropt 
 A-floor and shivered ; whilst, the spell dispelled, 
 No longer heard his ear the tongue of ill. 
 Yea, in high hope his liberated lips 
 Joined with Verena in the holy strain : 
 ' Agnus Dei, dona nobis pacem ! ' 
 
 Well was that prayer. Well was his little faith, 
 For, lumining the night to more than day.
 
 82 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 By radiance inconceivable, a form, 
 
 As of The Crucified, ineffable, 
 
 Passed o'er his sight — The same that eyes had seen, 
 
 That brush had drawn, yet wondrously transformed 
 
 From death to life, from shame to majesty — 
 
 His hair was topaz tinged with jasper-red, 
 
 And amethyst the marks imprest of thorns. 
 
 His eyes were sapphires deep as endless seas, 
 
 Vast as a cloudless space, and kind as morn, 
 
 His flesh an opal rose, and opal white, 
 
 His lips cornelian, most magnifical ; 
 
 Whilst all the lacerations of His frame 
 
 Flowed streams of rubies, such as orient 
 
 Knew not for size, rich as the drowsy sun ; 
 
 And from His side, commingling with this tide 
 
 Of ruby glories, countless diamonds ; 
 
 His cincture was of emeralds, entwined 
 
 With band of pearls — the ocean of a love, 
 
 Bounded by purity — around His loins 
 
 A silvern vesture, dazzling to behold. 
 
 Besprent with crystals clearer than the air. 
 
 Soft as a rainbow this effulgence passed. 
 When Felix felt the crisis o'er of fate ; 
 Since brighter than bird-music after storms. 
 He heard Verena's voice swell loud, from woe 
 To hope, and triumph ; for the morning dawned. 
 
 Then sounded rustling, as of windy waves. 
 
 Which hurry forth, not e'er to sound again ; 
 
 The glorious solar grey gleamed through the glass,
 
 VIA EXSPES. 83 
 
 Wherefrom a sense, as of the saved from sea, 
 
 Pervaded all his brain, instilling peace. 
 
 One glance without at morn, the messenger 
 
 To burst the chains which bound his soul to hell, 
 
 Then turned his eye, but as in shameful dread, 
 
 To that his hand had wrought unwittingly. 
 
 And then the sight ! He paled to see the sight ; 
 
 Such was the vivid picturing — his art 
 
 Surpassed all human art, at least in truth. 
 
 For now he knew the whole. Each part made bleed 
 
 Some better sympathy, revived some flower 
 
 Of memory implanted years ago. 
 
 Radiant each star shone in the galaxy 
 
 Of grace. The whole cast such a blaze of fire, 
 
 So blinding in its shimmer, so intense 
 
 Because of truth, the beam that penetrates 
 
 Through masks to conscience, that, with hidden eyes, 
 
 He could but bow prostrate, a humbled thing, 
 
 And with confession of his crime, in pain 
 
 Offer thanksgiving for deliverance. 
 
 There stood the picture — painted as the prince 
 Had willed it to be painted. There it glared 
 Upon his easel in full gleam of day. 
 The very vision of Evagrius, 
 — So far as feature — and, upon the cross 
 The true eidolon of The Crucified. 
 Yet a brief scrutiny revealed the feet 
 Devoid of peinture, though in outline drawn, 
 And thus the bond, the picture incomplete 
 Ere morn, was violate, and Felix free
 
 84 
 
 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 From danger imminent ; a few more strokes 
 
 Of skill Satanic, and his doom was sealed. 
 
 A life to live, a soul for paradise, 
 
 His now, his future, all he owed to her, 
 
 Whose intercession saved, whose holy palms 
 
 Upraised sufficed to hold the hand of hell. 
 
 Of her he thought— thoughts, doubts, and sadder dread. 
 
 Prayer has an end in praise, or in despair, 
 
 As work in sleep, or death. But which was hers ? 
 
 Sunrays came flickering into traceries, 
 
 Till the cathedral, empty save of one, 
 
 The watcher of the night, grew luminate 
 
 From east to west, from clerestory to aisle ; 
 
 Of one forlorn of will, whose inmost self, 
 
 By pressure fascinate of anxious fear. 
 
 That nerved to prayer and ecstacied her bram, 
 
 O'erpowered nature. Lapsed prostrate her frame 
 
 Before the altar, livid, icy-cold ; 
 
 The tender heart for agony had ceased. 
 
 Evagrius, the first to greet the day. 
 
 Found her recumbent, dead to outward sight, 
 
 In fervency the lily fingers clenched ; 
 
 A little book with border to each leaf — 
 
 Her father's gift— a mass of polychrome, 
 
 Fallen upon the pavement, and unclasped 
 
 Beside her crucifix and rosary. 
 
 He raised her head, and crossed a forehead white, 
 
 Then ran for holy water to the stoup, 
 
 Bathing her temples, tender as a wife.
 
 VIA EXSPES. 85 
 
 And called to her, for Christ, to ope her eyes : 
 
 Yet lay she motionless, a pallid thing, 
 
 Bereft of voice, and breath, and pulse of heart. 
 
 But soon a band of solemn sisterhood 
 
 Came trooping slowly to their orisons, 
 
 Who, when they found her pale, and still, and gone. 
 
 Raised reverent in care, and tried small arts, 
 
 Though all without avail, to rally life. 
 
 And next they wailed upon her piteously, 
 
 Filtering the feeble tear of dried-up love. 
 
 That flows from shallows, not from human depths, 
 
 For cloister-sympathy is cloister cold ; 
 
 The prison-flower blossoms colourless. 
 
 Then cried the youngest of this dark-robed train, 
 
 A fair fond-girl, too fresh an holocaust. 
 
 Who had a heart to give, a lovely heart, 
 
 So overflowing with the ichor love, 
 
 They could not staunch its stream with cobweb dust 
 
 Swept from the muniments of years gone by. 
 
 Cried she in music : ' Is not this a bride ? 
 
 She was to be a bride, when I professed, 
 
 Betrothed to Felix, envy of her peers, 
 
 Felix so great, and she so beautiful, 
 
 Verena only daughter of Verene. 
 
 Ah me ! To be a bride, and yet to die. 
 
 To be a bride, to love, and to be loved, 
 
 Then, as the cup was offered to thy lips, 
 
 To lose the draught of ecstacy, how sad ! 
 
 Perchance this was her wedding morn, and she 
 
 Has died of joy, as I should die of joy '.'
 
 86 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 Whence, bending as to kiss Verena's cheek, 
 Heard she the chiding of authority — 
 Ill-pleased at such a speech, at such a time 
 From her, an oblate of virginity — 
 Which crushed the hopeless heart to hopelessness, 
 Its proper level. Yet a little sob, 
 A tear that fell upon Verena's breast. 
 Were histories more sad than many deaths. 
 
 They placed the crucifix upon her breast, 
 With rosary, and pretty book, and veiled 
 The soft sweet face ; then laid her on a bier. 
 And next they shrouded all her lovely form 
 With samite, woven white as riven snow, 
 But broidered over by a silvern cross 
 Of foliage, with lily bordering. 
 The pious work of years, a work which saved 
 Some pious votaries a loss of mind. 
 
 Then bore they her to morn all-lustring dews, 
 
 Whose dazzle seemed to mock their sombre life 
 
 Of dead affections, and dulled interests, 
 
 At first in awful silence, till was passed 
 
 The precinct of their church, and then they sang : 
 
 ' A pale cloud from the west, Pain, Grief, and Death, 
 A sunbeam from the east, Life, Health, and Breath, 
 A morrow comes to all, but not to day. 
 
 'The silver cloud has brought a summer shower, 
 The gentle beam has shone but for an hour. 
 We come, we go, but never know the way.
 
 VIA EXSPES. 87 
 
 ' Whence glanced the beam, and whither may it go ? 
 Whence rose the cloud, where shall its waters flow ? 
 There is that might have been, yet never may.' 
 
 The early toiler of the early morn 
 
 Forgot his toil ; and children, first awake 
 
 To gather flowrets for their little loves, 
 
 And maids bereft of sleep by maiden care. 
 
 Which feeds on self in painful happiness 
 
 Undrowsily ; and age most ill at rest, 
 
 That wishes night were morn, and morn were night ; 
 
 All followed in procession of the bier, 
 
 Tramping of wonderment, which tramped, and spake 
 
 Low in sad tones of sibilant surprise. 
 
 And rendered, for the pity of it, tears. 
 
 Tears were no shame. A testimony tears 
 
 To eyes and hearts ; for eyes are sightless things 
 
 That never shed an heart-responsive tear. 
 
 And hearts all heartless that unfeeling feel. 
 
 At last reached was the home, where knelt in shame 
 
 Repentant Felix, offering to heaven 
 
 Nor rote, nor patter, nor another's words. 
 
 Be they angelic, but in gratitude 
 
 Of grace and honesty, his very soul. 
 
 Heard he the treadings of this coming crowd — 
 
 The flowing of an unexpected tide — 
 
 Towards his dwelling, with soft wail of nuns, 
 
 As of sad sea-birds, moaning with the winds. 
 
 His praying ceased. A wild presentiment 
 
 Of nameless evil shivered through his frame, 
 
 Unshaped in meaning, yet intense, as when
 
 88 VIA EXSPES. 
 
 A mother knows unheard a child is lost. 
 
 Dread drove forth prayer. He trembling gazed without, 
 
 To view a spectacle of surging things, 
 
 A white-draped bier, and borne of sable nuns, 
 
 To list their notes of woe ; to feel the scene — 
 
 Whose meaning for himself was meaningless — 
 
 Most unsuspicious, to his temper tuned ; 
 
 And thus he gazed, and gazed until the bier 
 
 Paused, as before his threshold, whilst the nuns 
 
 Upturned to him compassion for a dole ; 
 
 And all the people seemed afear'd to look, 
 
 But glanced, and then averted troubled eyes. 
 
 Anon : this slow procession towards the home 
 
 Moved piteous, where dwelt the old Verene 
 
 His artist-father, and the sire of her 
 
 He loved, and hoped for with a new-born hope. 
 
 Watching the train advance adown the way, 
 
 Uninterested as an absent man, 
 
 Who loses fact in fancy, Felix saw 
 
 In distance, yet so near as to be seen. 
 
 The company of death approach the door, 
 
 He knew to be Verene's. They paused, and soon 
 
 An aged figure, silvern-white by time, 
 
 Fared forth with elevated palms, and cried, 
 
 And wrung his hands, and fumbled with the bier. 
 
 Weaving wild gestures, as of one who swears. 
 
 That so is not so, fact is fantasy. 
 
 He saw the portal opened, but the bier 
 
 Turned as to enter. Then a horror seized 
 
 His heart, and tore it, as the wolf that springs
 
 VIA EXSPES. 89 
 
 On a belated traveller unawares. 
 
 He understood ! There's no unfaith in sight, 
 
 No mirage to invert a circumstance. 
 
 He understood, burst forth, and ran apace 
 
 With hair dishevelled, with the face of one, 
 
 Whose soul has tampered with dark things of hell. 
 
 Swiftly his footsteps bore him to the crowd, 
 
 Who parted trembling. But her bier va.s borne 
 
 Within the portal, ere he reached the spot 
 
 In mightiest agony where stood Verene — 
 
 The promise of a life-time withered 
 
 By one fell-blast — who standing held the key, 
 
 Hard stared at Felix a judicial stare, 
 
 That would have cursed had it but utterance, 
 
 And fronting to the people, as a seer. 
 
 And pointing with the finger of high scorn 
 
 On Felix pleading for a father's leave 
 
 Of entrance to a Paradise of death. 
 
 He closed the gates as on a murderer.
 
 VIA PACIS.
 
 VIA PACIS. 
 
 A voice in anguish, ' I shall go to her ! 
 But she shall never more return to me ! ' 
 A voice in hope. ' With life all is not lost, 
 We may be one, who erst could ne'er be one ! 
 For unity is as of like with like, 
 Not as of wolves with lambs. In after time, 
 When difference is purged, and all is new, 
 Commixture may be of the bad with good ; 
 For bad of yesterday are good to-day, 
 And yesterday is past, to-morrow comes ! ' 
 
 A voice in terror, ' Like the troubled sea. 
 Whose weary waters cast up mire and dirt, 
 The wicked have no peace.' A warning voice, 
 ' Will is as fate ; who masters will prevails 
 To turn a destiny for well or ill.' 
 A voice advising. ' Therefore seek the Church, 
 With whom are keys to open, and to shut 
 The counsels of salvation, held by her 
 In trust to feed the heritage of God.' 
 
 So rang full tones, which, harmonised as chords, 
 
 Formed Felix's conscience ; as some cantilene 
 
 Of minor melody, so sad, so deep, 
 
 Ceases not music to a listening ear, 
 
 Whose sympathies are nerved through suffering.
 
 94 VIA PACIS. 
 
 For happening upon Verena dead, 
 Fain would he curse, and die —such punishment 
 Transcended patience— yet forbore to curse. 
 Had he not just escaped from hell, as she 
 From earth ? Now not the time to retrogade. 
 His foot was on a ladder unto heaven, 
 Her upward steps to trace with footing sure, 
 Where, recked he, she was waiting true to troth. 
 Could he forget the magic of her voice. 
 Which travelled to his studio, from whence 
 He had no knowledge ; still a firm belief 
 From paradise in eucharistic sounds ? 
 
 Yet first, when sense of misery and loss 
 O'erspread his soul, a wearied body swooned. 
 And mind for long was paralysed, whereby 
 He failed to join events, or guage their worth. 
 Whose quality transcended faculties 
 It seemed he once possessed, yet held not now. 
 But next returning consciousness in sort 
 Restored his judgment ; whence the inner voice 
 Argued from grief to hope, from hope to fear. 
 From fear to warning, and advice of good ; 
 Which rhetoric sufficed. He would obey. 
 Verena had she voice, could ask of him 
 Isio more than to obey. Obedience 
 Might gain perchance the patronage of her. 
 He loved in reverence as a star of morn, 
 An atom glory in the heaven of heavens. 
 
 Wherefore at noon, when tongues were chattering 
 In hollow horror of a virgin dead,
 
 VIA PACIS. 95 
 
 When leeches prattled, in unwisdom wise, 
 
 Of causes, which they recked not ; of effects 
 
 They read awrong ; the more part arguing 
 
 Congenital disease in one, whose frame 
 
 Was perfect girlhood, full yet delicate, 
 
 Condemning nature for their lack of art ; 
 
 When matrons sighed, yet shook mysterious heads, 
 
 And maidens gathered lilies for the queen. 
 
 They owned, when lost, their queen ; then Felix rose, 
 
 And donned a sable cloak of saddest gear, 
 
 And slouched his bonnet o'er a haggard brow, — 
 
 His guise to shade — locked was the studio ; 
 
 He feared to gaze on that, the holiest Thing, 
 
 Most glorified by horrid memory. 
 
 Blending the worst and best ; nor dared he dare 
 
 His handiwork adore, though of the Christ 
 
 A mother stampt upon his fictile brain 
 
 A perfect reflex. Still he feared that Christ, 
 
 Much as an Urim-jewel, desecrate 
 
 Of hands unholy. Evil might portend 
 
 From presence of Satanic colouring. 
 
 The lonelier byeways for his path he chose, 
 Lest whisperings should lacerate ; and thus, 
 Reached of the monastery a postern gate, 
 Subtending the cathedral ; where he rang 
 A feeble ring, demanding as in shame 
 An audience of Evagrius, who came 
 In answer to his summons willingly, 
 And placed his gentle, taper, artist-hands 
 Within his own of muscle and of nerve,
 
 96 
 
 VIA PACIS. 
 
 To force attenuate by abstinence ; 
 
 And peered into his eyes in tender strength 
 
 Of sympathy, not all without reproach, 
 
 As one who says, ' I know, no need to tell!' 
 
 And next he led him silently within 
 
 The holy place ; and brow, and eyes, and ears, 
 
 Laved with the sacred waters of the stoup, 
 
 And crossed his mouth, and palm of either hand, 
 
 Saying, ' I charge thee by the name of Christ, 
 
 Foul fiend ! who hast possessed by fraud his soul. 
 
 Come forth of Felix.' Such his exorcism. 
 
 Whence Felix, like an aspen at the sigh 
 
 Of distant breezes, trembled for his thoughts. 
 
 Murmuring faintly, ' Deo gratias ! ' 
 
 lU-conscienced conscious how Evagrius 
 
 Kept looking into him with steady eye. 
 
 But after : an unearthly hollow tone 
 
 Much as of one, who has been dead, yet lives, 
 
 Framed words : ' Thy story, Felix, and its sin. 
 
 Hath been revealed to me. A dream I dreamed 
 
 Wherein I saw self-tempted lustful youth 
 
 Listen to siren counsellings of wrong. 
 
 For such I felt no pardon. Worse than worst. 
 
 This vile ingrate the purest heart had held, 
 
 That ever dwelt encased in loveliness. 
 
 Or roused to jealousy unwittingly. 
 
 He needs must swim in fouler waters ; whence. 
 
 Entangled in a net laid subtilly. 
 
 Was well nigh dragged a prize, and landed safe. 
 
 The sport of fishers merciless ; but she,
 
 VIA PACIS. 97 
 
 Whose love he disregarded, rent the net, 
 
 And rending rent vitality perforce, 
 
 To set the captive free. So now, my son, 
 
 Since I have knowledge of thine inmost thoughts, 
 
 Better at once and fully speak the whole, 
 
 And gain an absolution of the Church 
 
 For communing with Satan — lest he come 
 
 In darkest watches of a night, and rule 
 
 Thy weakness by his art, and thou be lost. 
 
 Then, after shrift and penance, by God's grace, 
 
 All that which is not well shall yet be well.' 
 
 Thence Felix passed to the confessional. 
 Where bowed before the cross, his spirit told 
 Each several item, and event ; each word. 
 And motive, till he cleared his breast of guilt : 
 Whose sacrifice was sorrow, for the Church 
 Gave lenient penance, in that penitence 
 With punishment seemed heavier e'en than sin. 
 
 He was, to yield his picture of The Christ 
 
 For ever to the Church's custody. 
 
 Lest from an under-lying ill fresh ill 
 
 Accrue. Of such the Church alone held charge. 
 
 He was, ere that Verena henceforth went 
 To mingle with her earth, ere that dark wood 
 Enshrined that gentle form, to kneel to her. 
 Beseeching pardon of her cold remains, 
 For deadly injury of faithless faith ; 
 Moreover, for a vow of recompense,
 
 g8 VIA PACIS. 
 
 To bind himself to her as celibate 
 In gratitude of love surpassing love. 
 
 Last, in remembrance of a mortal sin, 
 Which only penance full fulfilled should purge. 
 Each midnight ill in health, or well, to watch 
 For sound of Raphael, and ere it ceased 
 Repeat a " De profundisr 
 
 Then his head 
 He drooped in acquiescence, crossed his breast, 
 And vowed a vow to keep this penance trine. 
 
 But after admonition gently given, 
 
 He dared enquiry. ' Father, I would know, 
 
 If He, whom I have limned in my sin. 
 
 Be as The Christ, who once appeared to thee. 
 
 In feature, as in form ; or false in both ?' 
 
 Whereto the monk made answer, ' It is so. 
 Good cause have I to tell that it is so.' 
 
 Then said he, ' Father, much am I in fear 
 Lest old Verene will spurn me from his door, 
 Nor shall I ever view my angel dead. 
 Nor offer her the life-love of my life. 
 Nor pray her pardon of my faithless faith.' 
 
 To whom the monk, ' Far wiser than thy fears, 
 A deed impossible I would not bid. 
 Obey. Upon the rood I prophesy, 
 Verene shall welcome thee to-morrow morn, 
 For greater hate is merged in greater grief.'
 
 VIA PACIS. 99 
 
 He asked yet further, ' Am I freed from him, 
 Athirst for futures of his hapless prey, 
 So far as is the past ?' 
 
 ' Freed,' said the monk, 
 * Yet watch before the altar one brief hour, 
 Ere ever day has vanished o'er the hills. 
 The grace of strength is needed. Satan pays 
 Such loans as thine by misery acute. 
 If haply he may drive men to despair. 
 Not past as yet the crisis of thy life, 
 Nor paid in full the penalty of sin 
 By anguish such as darkness may be felt. 
 Right was it to resign ill-gotten fame — 
 Thy name thou mightest name this very day 
 Greater than Fra Angelico — rightly 
 Thou has elected right. Hold fast the right, 
 And God be with thee ! ' 
 
 Thus his presence left 
 Felix with gaze that feasted on the ground. 
 Thence hied him to the nave, and found a nook, 
 Pillared, and hid from other worshippers. 
 Wherein his grief to revel, flowing tears 
 In volume rich, as very drops of life. 
 
 The vespers had been sung, a thin new moon 
 Risen to chequer all the diaper 
 And pavement with a weaker colouring — 
 Her own pale hue commingling with the tincts 
 So rich in sunlight — ere that Felix rose
 
 lOO VIA PACIS. 
 
 From bended knee, to seek his studio, 
 And dreams of woe in lieu of woe awake, 
 For well he counted woe his parasite. 
 
 The studio he found unlocked ; and That, 
 His sight's aversion — nor from lack of love — 
 Removed from off the easel ; but by whom 
 He failed to judge, till he espied a scroll, 
 Whereon was writ : ' My son, I have fulfilled 
 The first part of thy penance, unrequired ; 
 This hallowed, though dishallowed, picture, ere 
 These words be read, shall be in guardianship 
 Of Holy Church. See thou performs't the rest ; 
 For penance vowed, and penance unfulfilled, 
 Is suicide of hope, and birth of death.' 
 
 But with a moon-set night came helpless peace — 
 
 As drowsy quiet after awe of storm, 
 
 Though feebly moans the far horizon's wind — 
 
 Yet vacancy instead of turbulence. 
 
 The rest of impotence to feel unrest. 
 
 He took his lute. He loved that tunesome lute. 
 It could but pour forth sounds, as saddest sighs. 
 ' Oh, wherefore comfortless,' he cried, ' my lute ?- 
 For music is the latest friend to leave, 
 The first to come, of friends the truest friend — 
 Raise thou my discord to thy harmony ! 
 Attune my lack of tune to join thy tune !
 
 VIA PACIS. lOI 
 
 Dear lute, am I in sympathies a corpse, 
 
 Who crave one echo of a song of heaven 
 
 From her sweet voice, through thee, to soothe my soul ? 
 
 Dear tender lute, be true, as I am fond !' 
 
 Whereafter minor melted into dreams 
 
 Of songs so universal, that they sing 
 
 A million echoes in one melody. 
 
 Adapt to every soul that owns an ear, 
 
 To ope Its holiest holy the one key. 
 
 Where live sensations most ineffable, 
 
 To dullard deaf, who may not hear, unknown ; 
 
 Adapt to every soul that owns an ear 
 
 The kindly channel for a flowing stream. 
 
 Whose waters find an ocean fathomless. 
 
 There is that cramps a strain. Words would confine 
 
 The great illimitable in their span, 
 
 The less to hold the greater. Felix tried 
 
 In humble art to seek in wilder chords 
 
 An outlet for the bursting valves of sense ; 
 
 Till sound responsive shaped its mind in verse : 
 
 ' I saw a cloudlet curl into the moon, 
 
 The new moon of a summer's night, but soon 
 
 The cloudlet vanished, and the moon was set. 
 
 * I saw a seagull on a fringe of foam 
 
 Ride landwards safely. Ere she fluttered home, 
 
 Her wing was tangled in a fisher's net.
 
 I02 VIA PACIS. 
 
 ' I saw blush roses for a bridal wreath 
 Pellucid bloom at eve. Ere morn a breath 
 Of ruder Boreas had wrecked their leaves. 
 
 ' I saw a noble ship essay the seas, 
 
 Grace shaped her beams and halcyon fanned the breeze ; 
 
 She sailed : but she returned not evermore ; 
 
 ' She sped to new horizons far away 
 
 The one from one, as glamour from his day, 
 
 Whose heart shall warm to lovelight nevermore.' 
 
 Content was he to sing in woe-worn voice 
 An oft-repeated strain : ' The one from one. 
 From one the one !' till eyelids sank to sleep. 
 His lips half-formed to wail, ' The one from one.' 
 
 To wake to happiness is more than life — 
 
 A glory glorifying thmgs of earth — 
 
 When all our scenery gleams aureous. 
 
 And every face the face as of a friend. 
 
 Most joyous for thy joyousness ; and sleep 
 
 Is prelude to a melody of joy. 
 
 To wake to misery e'en more than death. 
 
 Which sharply severs all the tangled web ; 
 
 For sleep is so emulcient to the sad. 
 
 That to curtail it seems to sin a sin ; 
 
 And sleep is strongest on the mourner's eye. 
 
 When weight of care oppresses, when poor souls 
 
 Float best, if harboured in the port of dreams
 
 VIA PACIS. 103 
 
 Until the midday chimes, so Felix slept, 
 Aroused his sense most vividly to-day, 
 And all the blackness of a dreaded day. 
 
 He first endued his limbs with mourner's garb, 
 
 Yet clad with care, as of a courtier, 
 
 Who goes to do obeisance to his liege ; 
 
 But next he took a little miniature 
 
 From out a casket, with a lock of gold, 
 
 His chiefest treasures. For a year ago, 
 
 He painted, on a plate of ivory, 
 
 Verena, as a goddess, bathed in clouds, 
 
 Embowered in a galaxy of stars. 
 
 Whose sceptre ruled a sky, whose feet a world. 
 
 This task had been ideal, if perchance 
 
 Man may idealise the beautiful. 
 
 It was the pure Verena of old thoughts — 
 
 And where such thoughts, as thoughts of early love ? — 
 
 He willed while absent ever in his eye 
 
 From dawn to twilight. Now, in penitence 
 
 Of blame of self, he felt to view unfit 
 
 So living a remembrance of the dead. 
 
 Wherefore he took the picture, with her lock 
 
 So silky soft, and placed them next his heart ; 
 
 Then, disregarding hunger after fast. 
 
 Seized a sombrero, with his cloak, and strode 
 
 In shame and pain to meet the old Verene. 
 
 The gates he found unlocked ; wild signs of woe 
 Pervading all the home, that was her home.
 
 I04 VIA PACIS. 
 
 Whilst one said, ' Felix, wherefore art thou come ? ' 
 
 Another, ' Butchers love their handiwork. 
 
 Verena died of vile unfaith ; her heart 
 
 Burst of an agony, for love of one 
 
 And he white-livered ! ' Next a maiden hissed, 
 
 ' A curse on him. He is not fit to live ! ' 
 
 This at the portal. Nor did words suffice. 
 
 Men looked at him to look upon their swords ; 
 
 While women muttered threats, and pointed gibes, 
 
 Urging their men to deal, as he had dealt. 
 
 But Felix bore no weapon. Men are men, 
 
 And strike not man unarmed for chivalry. 
 
 Yet, ere the babel gave him space to speak — 
 
 He bore reproaches, as the deaf, unheard — 
 
 A tall dark knight, by name Sir Everard, 
 
 Loaned of a bye-stander a sword — of old 
 
 He loved Verena deeply, nor had she 
 
 Frowned on his suit before that Felix came, 
 
 And made himself the master of her fate — 
 
 Whereafter drew his own Damascus steel, 
 
 A silent witness to the blood of foes, 
 
 And placing blade by blade, as parallels. 
 
 Held each to Felix by its point, and cried : 
 
 * Choose which thou wilt, and God defend the right ! ' 
 
 Gazed Felix still, with far off eyes, beyond 
 This scene of angry clamour. Grief is great. 
 He did not answer, move, or aught but gaze. 
 
 Then blustered all : * Poltroon, and woman-heart ! 
 Death is too good a guerdon for the false.
 
 VIA PACIS, 105 
 
 Betwixt this knight and thee the prince shall judge, 
 And grant deliverance,' 
 
 But Sir Everard, 
 With loathing of unutterable scorn, 
 Sheathing his trusty blade sneered, ' Nay, fair sirs, 
 This thing is caitiff; timorous withal ; 
 A turn-tail cur. It needs the lash and leash. 
 I do not fight with that, which fears to fight.' 
 
 Yet Felix stood, nor recked of aught save sound, 
 Unconscious of least purport. But Verene, 
 O'er hearing clatter of unseemly tongues, 
 Thence angered, left his watch beside the couch 
 Of pale Verena, hurrying to learn 
 The cause of noise, which seemed as sacrilege. 
 
 The cause, though not the witting cause, stood white 
 And motionless as marble, whilst his eye 
 Shot rays unearthly, either hand had fallen 
 In lack of energy, droopt were his knees. 
 And all his aspect told of hopeless woe. 
 
 Amazed Verene regarded him, but checked 
 
 The word of wrath, which half escaped his lips ; 
 
 An artist-eye detected agony 
 
 So wondrously acute in that strange look. 
 
 As stopt the curse, he could have cursed with joy, 
 
 The blame he felt to blame, in sympathy. 
 
 There is an unity of greater griefs
 
 I06 VIA PACIS. 
 
 In bonds as sacred as a sacrament. 
 
 A crass conjunction was it. One, the sire 
 
 Of her outstretched upon the bed of death ; 
 
 And one, whose falsity had laid her low. 
 
 Yet when revenge, the acme of revenge, 
 
 Proves insufficient to requite a wrong, 
 
 Then is forgiveness possible ; for hurt 
 
 Is limited by lust of equal hate. 
 
 At first, when grief raged passionate, Verene 
 
 Hugged retribution as a recompense ! 
 
 Slowly would he have tortured to the death. 
 
 O'er torments gloating of his enemy ; 
 
 But now he read in Felix's face a truth, 
 
 That worse than death is life to him, whose soul 
 
 Is lacerate by anguish of remorse — 
 
 Small need of iron, rack, or screw, or flame. 
 
 There was within that pained unceasingly, 
 
 More sure than Nero, or inquisitor — 
 
 That writ a catalogue of sufferings 
 
 On features blanched from fire to deadliest ash. 
 
 One glance into such troubled countenance, 
 
 And hate dispersed. The balance stood a debt. 
 
 Which God alone was able to repay. 
 
 Before this aged one, whose age and grief 
 Commanded reverence, all held their peace, 
 In true compassion for dishevelled locks, 
 Which clustered o'er his forehead, wintry white. 
 The weirdest framework to an injured eye, 
 Fixed steadfastly on Felix. Felix dazed
 
 VIA PACIS. 
 
 Knew not his presence, for her home had brought 
 Such reminiscence to a fevered brain, 
 As to obscure the present in the past. 
 
 They saw the Hps of old Verene apart. 
 As one that would, yet has not utterance. 
 They saw him tremble, whilst the saddest tears 
 Coursed down the furrows of his timeworn cheeks. 
 Last, in a bruised-hearted tone, he asked : 
 ' Felix, what woulds't thou ? ' 
 
 Then the old old voice, 
 Which oft and oft had named him 'son,' recalled 
 The mind of Felix back from wanderings 
 Amid the cypresses of deadly woe 
 To cruel fact. He started with a shrill. 
 That pierced the hearts of those implacable 
 With awe and pity. Then he kneeling raised 
 The miniature, and silky lock of gold. 
 Towards Verene in silent eloquence. 
 Which prayed a pardon for the love of God. 
 Eyes, face, and gesture all made rhetoric 
 To plead his plea. Verene could not forbear, 
 But murmured gently, * Speak, my son, I hear.' 
 
 The tone which tells forgiveness is of Christ, 
 Exceeding language — language being of man, 
 To hide by slaver murderous design — 
 And, being Christhke, melts by grace a soul. 
 Thus Felix, who, albeit Evagrius 
 Had prophesied of ruth from old Verene, 
 
 107
 
 Io8 VIA PACIS. 
 
 When fell melodious pity on his ears, 
 
 In lieu of such anathema, of right 
 
 As justice should assign a criminal, 
 
 Failed to refrain his soul, but cried aloud : 
 
 ' In mercy curse, thy kindness far exceeds 
 
 My mind's endurance. Curse and I am blest. 
 
 Curse this accursed, so accurst to thee. 
 
 Yet show one mercy. Sire, thou calls't me ' son '- 
 
 I quote a title most ill-merited — 
 
 For one brief hour let Felix be thy son, 
 
 To watch beside the dead, as thine, so mine. 
 
 But first will I surrender these. This lock 
 
 Of golden memory, I may not keep ; 
 
 This picture of a perfect form, by me 
 
 In idea wrought, yet as reality. 
 
 These hold I sacred, by the touch pollute, 
 
 The traitor touch of my degraded self. 
 
 Henceforth is Felix outlaw from mankind 
 
 Cain, Lamech, Judas, I excuse ye all, 
 
 Your sins are worlds, and mine an universe ! ' 
 
 Replied Verene, ' Thy futile penitence 
 
 Will not give back the murdered. Idle words 
 
 Of idle grief are worth an idle naught.' 
 
 ' Nay,' cried Sir Everard, ' He is distraught 
 By horror, as by anguish. I have wronged 
 A nature not ignoble in its shame. 
 Wherefore, judge I, Verene, that chivalry 
 Demands a true request should be allowed.
 
 VIA PACIS. 109 
 
 An thou demurrest, ask, good sire, the dead. 
 Accept the juster verdict of the dead.' 
 Thus spake Sir Everard, an honest foe. 
 First to forgive, as ever first to fight, 
 Who knew no malice, as he knew no fear. 
 
 Beheld Verene a figure prostrate, still, 
 In supplication piteous — the throes 
 Of pain reflected in his lineaments. 
 The dignity of manhood sunk in wreck, 
 Yet from the wreck a newer dignity — 
 Wherefore the speech of bluff Sir Everard 
 Affected much his bosom. Sighing soft. 
 He signed compliance — but the precious tress 
 Of golden hair, and painted miniature, 
 His hand rejected hastily. It passed 
 Athwart his brow, as if to gather thought, 
 Then beckoned onwards to the httle couch. 
 Where lay Verena motionless and mute. 
 Felix arose, and followed tremulous 
 The totter of his steps, whose crown of years 
 Seemed apt associate of a death-chamber. 
 They trode a stair, but next a corridor. 
 Then to her bower decked with memories ; 
 Hope numb ; but a sirocco agony. 
 
 The walls with satin wood were wainscoted. 
 And lighted by a varied oriel, 
 Whose muUions had been stencil-diapered, 
 Whose glass refracted legends of noblesse.
 
 no VIA PACIS. 
 
 A meaning medley of knight-errantry, 
 
 With troubadours, and ladyes yellow-tressed, 
 
 And dragons typical of force and fraud, 
 
 With emblem, and achievement, and device. 
 
 Whilst o'er the chimney stretched a frescoing, 
 
 The chiefest handicraft of old Verene, 
 
 Of sweet Saint Cecilie, the music-saint. 
 
 Whose fingers seemed to sound, whose eyes to sing ; 
 
 Whose lineaments were those that loving art 
 
 But painted to repeat ; his one ideal 
 
 Verena, peerless peeress among girls. 
 
 Her grate was strewn with ferns of tenderer growth ; 
 
 On either side, a vase of fictile worth. 
 
 Wherein were blooming lilies virginal ; 
 
 And in the angle, curtained off, yet now 
 
 Exposed for masses, stood her oratory. 
 
 An altar, 'neath a tender dying Christ, 
 
 With light resplendent from enamelled brass. 
 
 And broidered cloth of samite lily-white, 
 
 Deep fringed of lace ; and decorate with flowers. 
 
 And book of Gospels ; and The Crucifix. 
 
 His eye bewildered saw unseeing these. 
 
 He did but realise the equipoise 
 
 Of form and taste in her so exquisite ; 
 
 For, turning towards the couch, whose silken folds 
 
 Of argent astervvise on azure ground 
 
 Were drawn to show the still repose of her 
 
 Inclined thereon, bedeckt by maiden care 
 
 With passiflora and with violet.
 
 VAI PACIS. 1 1 I 
 
 There was that changed a grief to ecstacy ; 
 He breathed a breath, as though he breathed his last, 
 Of wild amaze, that dried each tear, and gave 
 His tongue a liberty of utterance. 
 
 The place seemed sacrosanct ; time consecrate ; 
 Himself an oblate ; so he bowed the knee, 
 By force of intuition to the dead. 
 And, as he knelt, his keener artist-eye, 
 Undimmed of tears, intent, as if in doubt. 
 First scanned, then curious kept steadfastly 
 A watchful eager gaze upon the face 
 Of pale Verena as a pearl of price. 
 
 The old Verene was leaning, aged in age 
 As 'twere an aeon by a few long hours. 
 Hard by the oriel, brooding o'er his past, 
 With head averted ; for he willed not view 
 This last sad meeting of a groom and bride. 
 So close yet so apart ; when sudden rose 
 An elegy of stranger fantasies : 
 
 ' And is she dead, my own, my darling dead ? 
 
 This is a death not altogether death, 
 
 Unless the holy die another death 
 
 Of separation, not of patent change 
 
 In feature and complexion. Calm is she, 
 
 A maiden in a pallid sleep of bliss — 
 
 As streams with stagnant surface seem to stay, 
 
 Yet glide beneath ; their gliding unperceived— 
 
 It cannot be her spirit lives not there
 
 112 VIA PACIS. 
 
 I seem to feel her spirit ; or is this 
 
 The curst hallucination of a trance ? 
 
 Just God, I may not know ! Belief in death 
 
 Is harder to believe than all belief, 
 
 Belief in life the hardest disbelief.' 
 
 With head hurled backwards, as of righteous scorn, 
 Verene out-cried. ' A truce, false fool, to hope ! 
 A vacant hope is worst of mockery.' 
 
 But Felix answered, ' Prythee grant me speech, 
 A little, and my voice is as the grave. 
 For first, I must acknowledge to thine ear 
 My heinous crime in tampering with hell. 
 A combat was there twixt the good and bad, 
 A soul the prize of victory, and mine. 
 This duel raged throughout a weary night. 
 With armoury not carnal, nor of earth, 
 The morn to close the issue. Ere the sun 
 Had peered above the topmost mountain crest, 
 Fall'n was the good : na'theless the victory won. 
 Such victory being not, unless of blood. 
 Thou thoughtest infidelity of kind 
 Had lied to her, to break her heart by lies. 
 False though I was, she knew not I was false ; 
 She knew but of my peril, and the power 
 Her sanctity possessed to rescue me ; 
 Of instinct either. For by patent force, 
 The most sublime of prayer, that human tongue 
 Can offer in resistance, she prevailed. 
 No marvel, if, beneath the holy joy
 
 VIA PACIS. 
 
 Of holy triumph, gentle girlhood sank ; 
 
 There is that swims to touch the shore and sink, 
 
 There is that saves a life to lose a life, 
 
 Nor earns the blessing of the saved from sea. 
 
 Thus far, Verene, confession is to thee. 
 
 But, when the bitterness of death is past, 
 
 When thou art nighest to the deep dark wave, 
 
 And pant to cross to her who beckons thee, 
 
 Then pray I, of thy magnanimity, 
 
 Grant me full absolution for this wrong. 
 
 If to forgive be possible for man.' 
 
 He spake to silence. For the old Verene 
 Concealed lineaments, which failed to hide 
 A bitterness most uncontainable. 
 
 Then Felix neared the couch, and kneeling bent 
 
 Towards her, who laid thereon, as sleeps a cloud 
 
 On stillest waters, or as far-off forms, 
 
 Which may be mountain peaks, or folds of air ; 
 
 So merged her shape in snowy draperies. 
 
 Suspiring lover accents, tender low. 
 
 In faith of being heard ; he could but think 
 
 She listened, who lay there so close, so sweet. 
 
 • Dear lover, lover dear, I pray of thee. 
 By all the love we felt, and did rejoice 
 To feel, as little birds the first of spring. 
 Love still thine only love, who now in shame 
 Implores for his irreparable wrong 
 
 113
 
 114 
 
 VIA PACTS. 
 
 A pardon plenary. For all he is, 
 
 And what he is, and hopes to be, is thine— 
 
 Thy convert, truest, to the truth of truth. 
 
 Dear lover, thou art chill, as he is chill 
 
 In endless winter,, till the gulf-stream, death, 
 
 Shall melt the currents of a life congealed, 
 
 And bear him o'er the ocean to thy home ; 
 
 For death is blessed in that thou hast died. 
 
 Dear lover, till the moment of release 
 
 For this thy prisoner of longest hope. 
 
 He vows a vow, and vows it on our troth — 
 
 As being holiest of holy things— 
 
 That earthly love is henceforth dead, that heaven, 
 
 So multiplied in dazzle by thy soul, 
 
 Shall hold each jewel of his heart, until 
 
 Upon thy bosom, purified of sin, 
 
 His soul shall rest for evermore in love. 
 
 Dear lover, not farewell, save to this form, 
 
 Formed on the model of a perfect soul. 
 
 So excellent in loveliness, and grace. 
 
 That death, the foul despoiler, cannot rob 
 
 One feature's beauty, or one line of peace.' 
 
 He paused from deeper anguish. For the nonce 
 
 Thought welled on thought, commingling difference. 
 
 Seemed it, as though her spirit nigh to him 
 
 Kissed a communion ; then, as if the dead 
 
 Die never to their lovers, but remain 
 
 In closer unity, despite of death ; 
 
 As birds, though freed, still hover round the cage,
 
 VIA PACIS. 
 
 115 
 
 Which bonds their mate, and trill eternal love 
 In sweeter tones because of .liberty. 
 
 But moaned Verene, ' The severance of ties 
 Is final after death. Ah ! woe is me ! ' 
 Which creed of ice extinguished his of fire, 
 Causing remorse to roll forth into words. 
 
 ' Ah, God ! How given-of-God had I but known ! 
 None rates a worth who has not felt a loss. 
 Perchance this evil smart might smart the less, 
 Or bribe endurance, were it not for this : 
 Mine is the fault. This wound I dealt myself. 
 And Tophet is the ceaseless blame of self. 
 In private prosecution ; self to speak, 
 As either counsel, jury ; self to speak 
 The verdict of a court thou ownest just. 
 Convict I stand. A pardon thou alone 
 Hads't power to grant, dear lover, yet not now. 
 Now song is turned to dirge, and noon to eve, 
 And blossom to decay, and sun to clouds. 
 And stars to gloom. My star is travelling 
 In darker orbits, where is neither speech 
 Nor language, yet are deeper voices heard. 
 
 help me heaven to bear this severance 
 
 Of link from link, which though not quite dissect. 
 Hangs but upon the thread of memory ! 
 
 1 am not all despair, save when I gaze. 
 Dear lover, on thy features, hence to me 
 Inseparable, graven in mine eyes,
 
 Il6 VIA PACIS. 
 
 To whom farewell is torture. Break my heart ! 
 Break, and be merciful, that both may lie 
 United on a bridal couch of death ! ' 
 
 He ceased, but not to kneel. The rack is slow 
 In torturing, yet does one second change 
 The sufferer from conscious pain of frame, 
 To dull oblivion because of pain. 
 
 He ceased, as in a trance ; to whom Verene 
 Urged, but in anger : ' Thou hast drivelled forth 
 Enough of drivel to an earless thing, 
 Whose company thou soughtest for an hour. 
 That hour is past. By mercy thou hast gained 
 A privilege which grace alone could grant ; 
 And grace is equal, not a prodigal. 
 A golden hour of an all-priceless time, 
 Thou prayed'st — for it never shall return — 
 For thy dolour. Nor was I miserly. 
 Thy boon I gave — thou hads't my priceless time. 
 No more I will to squander. Go in peace ! 
 
 Then Felix moved perforce for very shame, 
 
 And standing said, ' I go, sire.' Yet went not ; 
 
 But radiant — as the reflex of a glass. 
 
 Which pierces with its rays of light condensed — 
 
 On pale Verena, rigid closed his lips. 
 
 And set his teeth, as wrought by energies. 
 
 Reproachful words poured forth Verene, ' For shame, 
 To dally with the grief of helpless age —
 
 VIA PACIS. 117 
 
 Insult before the dead is sacrilege — 
 
 I charge thee, youth, forthwith depart in peace ! ' 
 
 Responded Felix by a start, which shook 
 
 The couch whereon Verena lay ; and then 
 
 Gazed yet more earnestly ; next bowed his head 
 
 To raise her taper fingers in his own. 
 
 And kissed them warmly, as to very warmth ; 
 
 Adown then bending, to her parted lips 
 
 He fixed his lips, and breathed, and breathed again, 
 
 Nor recked he of Verene, whose wrathful voice 
 
 Reviled his license as ingratitude. 
 
 Lastly he turned his eyes to God, and cried : 
 
 ' O Jesu merciful ! Torment me not. 
 
 Is this illusion ? Is it mania 
 
 Of mind distraught by overmuch of woe, 
 
 Or Thine own loving-kindness in excess ? ' 
 
 In frenzy wild Verene exclaimed, ' My curse 
 On one, who murders only to defile 
 The holy dead ! Is there no God in heaven, 
 No thunderbolt this villainy to scathe ? ' 
 
 Yet Felix heeded not. Removing soft 
 
 The samite, and pale shroud endraping her. 
 
 He placed his hand below a pearly breast. 
 
 And pressed her heart again, and yet again. 
 
 As tentative of sympathy not lost. 
 
 And breathed hot breath more hotly on her lips.
 
 Il8 VIA PACIS. 
 
 Vereiie in fury uncontrollable, 
 
 A dagger from his doublet drew, with words 
 
 Of imprecation, livid lineaments, 
 
 Intensity of will, then grasped its hilt. 
 
 To deal a death-blow to the man, who dared 
 
 Expose the virgin glories of the dead, 
 
 His arm aloft, a malediction said. 
 
 The very aim assured, when loud he heard, 
 
 The young man shrill in tones surpassing wild : 
 
 ' Verena, darling, speak ! ' And then again, 
 
 • One Uttle voice, thy Felix craves to hear ! ' 
 
 Struck was the blow, had not the old man's eye 
 Glanced but one glance on her who lay so still, 
 To see a sight, which caused his hand release 
 The implement of blood ; which forced his tongue 
 A piercing cry to issue forth of joy. 
 
 Opened the azure of Verena's eye, 
 
 As to a traveller an unknown sea ; 
 
 Motioned to utterance, yet not to sound, 
 
 Her pale lips tinted feebly as of rose. 
 
 She lived. The tide, which ebbed so oceanwards, 
 
 Turned at the tones of him who ruled its depths, 
 
 And slowly welled in flood towards the shore. 
 
 Whilst Felix, doubt dispelled in full delight. 
 
 Transported by the first beam of her love, 
 
 Sobbed tenderly, ' O Jesu, Thou art kind, 
 
 This death is life. This life the death of death ! ' 
 
 Then, ere Verene could reach the living one,
 
 VIA PACIS. 119 
 
 And feel the life he saw, Evagrius, 
 
 With maidens bearing raiment, entered in, 
 
 And strange elixirs, sweet restoratives 
 
 To fan the spark of being to a blaze ; 
 
 To joy, as grief alone joys after grief; 
 
 And weep with those, whose tears were paradise. 
 
 Then said Evagrius, ' The end of sin, 
 
 Unsorrowed for, is judgment after death ; 
 
 The end of penance penitent is peace. 
 
 This narrative is as a mystery. 
 
 Who runs may read its meaning. Ever hope, 
 
 For God is kinder than a mother kind, 
 
 More loving than a lover, and on love. 
 
 His highest essence, sets such store supreme, 
 
 As to accord the prayer of love for love. 
 
 I bear a benediction to this house. 
 
 It is my blessing to be charged to bless, 
 
 A higher function than apostleship ; 
 
 For e'en pre-knowledge much vouchsafed to me, 
 
 Be it a gift supernal, is in kind 
 
 Tinged with a sadness. Future charts of life 
 
 To most are dotted with prosperities, 
 
 Whilst sorrow looms delineated full ; 
 
 Most lines rule black, and very few of gold. 
 
 But now the cup of happiness is pressed 
 
 To overflowing. Lovers are as one. 
 
 A father holds a daughter saved. Midday 
 
 Beams all unflecked of clouds ; and summer sun, 
 
 More brilliant from the storms of later spring,
 
 I20 VIA PACIS. 
 
 Yields promise of a harvest plentiful. 
 
 For such rare jewels in the crown of time 
 
 Vouchsafed of mercy, Deo gratias ! 
 
 Who much receiveth, he must love the more.' 
 
 Thus opened to their view the way of peace, 
 
 With vistas endless as eternity, 
 
 Prepared for both to walk in, hand in hand. 
 
 After their Leader. Little need to trace 
 
 The future of a pair, who still are one — 
 
 Though centuries have passed, they still are one — 
 
 To tell, how Felix wrought in piety 
 
 An honest fame to earn by patient art. 
 
 Or how Verena found her other self 
 
 In Felix born again to truth, and taught 
 
 That truth and life are unities at one. 
 
 The rest is thus : 
 
 This picture of the Christ, 
 A verity, yet of such workmanship 
 As did dishallow e'en a hallowed thing, 
 Wast hidden by the brotherhood, lest sight 
 Should influence souls by some strange mystery \ 
 For sin in sacred things is serpentine. 
 And hides a deadly presence, till her sting 
 Has venomised a nature to its hurt. 
 The reredos, to all its pristine form 
 Evagrius restored. A chiselled Christ, 
 With cross conventional, and canopied ;
 
 VIA PACIS 121 
 
 Daring to tell the prince, that change from good 
 To that, which may be better, may be worse, 
 Is less of wisdom than to leave alone. 
 
 Verene, the aged, heard the marriage bells 
 Proclaim Verena's bliss, his perfect peace. 
 Which lasted through a cheery autumn age. 
 Until his yule-tide dawned, and he was born 
 A baby in the land of endless rest.
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS.
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS. 
 
 I stood where a grey church tower 
 O'ershadows the wayward Wye, 
 
 And the spirit within me drifted 
 As a dove in a dreamy sky ; 
 
 I spurned the dull earth beneath me, 
 I trode not the churchyard green, 
 
 While there passed in review before me 
 A weird and majestic scene. 
 
 From grave and from vault came streaming. 
 From beneath the embattled eaves, 
 
 The souls of that ancient hamlet, 
 
 And they grouped Hke silvery sheaves. 
 
 Their features and forms translucent 
 I seemed as of yore to remember. 
 
 In the varying shapes of the cloudlets, 
 Or the fire's expiring ember. 
 
 Yet these shadowy beings were real, 
 Though moulded in ghostly fashion ; 
 
 I could tell by each spirit's outline 
 The tale of its master passion ; 
 
 This man you have met in the market. 
 
 His wife in the village street, 
 These lads have danced on the greensward 
 
 To the trip of their lasses' feet.
 
 126 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS. 
 
 The Parson in stole and surplice, 
 
 Squire, Yeoman, and Blacksmith and Keeper, 
 The Miller, the Shepherd, the Woodreve, 
 
 You may recognise every sleeper. 
 
 Yet others of eldern story. 
 
 The Friar with his scapular lean. 
 
 The Archer, the Outlaw, the Minstrel, 
 The Jew with his gaberdine. 
 
 The maiden forlorn with her nightshade. 
 
 The priest in biretta and cope, 
 A gay cavalier with his wassail, 
 
 A murderer trailing his rope. 
 
 The villain who ruined the maiden. 
 
 The knight of the saltire red. 
 The churl, and the lord and the lady, 
 
 A traitor with severed head. 
 
 The saint and the sinner, the noble. 
 The base, and the weak, and the bold, 
 
 A baby who lived but a second, 
 Its mother a hundred years old. 
 
 Far more than the registers reckon 
 
 In their tattered and moth-eaten pages 
 
 Arose this motley assemblage, 
 The garnered crop of the ages ; 
 
 And the gaze of the spirits was wistful. 
 As they solemnly flitted away
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS. 1 27 
 
 From the churchyard rude with its tomb-stones, 
 Their long, long yesterday. 
 
 They trooped with the sough of a zephyr, 
 
 As warriors ready to march ; 
 While I saw float above the river 
 
 A soft and celestial arch ; 
 
 And anon — as a dazzling rainbow 
 
 From a darkling cloud shall arise — 
 It dimly revealed in the distance 
 
 The glories of Paradise. 
 
 Twas a bridge for the souls in ether 
 
 Of mighty majestic span, 
 And a sentinel stood before it. 
 
 In form as the Son of Man ; 
 
 His shadow encompassed the heavens. 
 
 His eye flashed a fatal fire, 
 There was that in his mien to betoken 
 
 The force of a righteous ire. 
 
 I looked — and beneath me the river, 
 
 Had turned to vapour and blood, 
 While dragons, in countless numbers, 
 
 Upreared their crests from its flood ; 
 
 And swift from their tongues, as arrows. 
 
 They shot forth volumes of flame. 
 And withal, the semblances filthy 
 
 Of lust, and deceit, and shame ;
 
 128 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS. 
 
 And below that bridge of the spirits 
 There gaped a bottomless pit, 
 
 And the flames, and the filth, and the horror 
 As a whirlpool rolled into it. 
 
 Then each one of that shadowy concourse 
 With grave-clothes shrouded his face, 
 
 For the wrath of the Lamb was as lightning, 
 And ended the day of grace ; 
 
 And, lo ! from the old church tower 
 
 Rang forth a clarion's blast ; 
 And the listening souls obedient 
 
 To the marge of the river passed ; 
 
 And the sun turned black in the noon-day. 
 And the moon was as darkling blood, 
 
 And the stars, in myriad showers, 
 Fell from heaven as a water-flood ; 
 
 Naught appeared save the lambent whirlpool. 
 And above it that gorgeous bridge. 
 
 With the tremulous host of the spirits, 
 As they trooped to the river's ridge. 
 
 One by one they approached in silence 
 
 The Judge of the living-dead, 
 And there fell, as they entered The Presence, 
 
 A veil from each spirit's head ; 
 
 And its^heart in its naked pulsation 
 
 Was revealed through a shadowy breast ;
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS, 1 29 
 
 While upon it the eye of the Master 
 Was riveted as in quest ; 
 
 For the soul that had loved and suffered 
 
 Had chosen the better part, 
 And the test of its truth or falsehood 
 
 Was the warmth of the human heart. 
 
 Then first of that company spectral, 
 
 As a chieftain leading the van, 
 There stooped and staggered in anguish 
 
 An old and decrepit man. 
 
 A morning and mid-day of labour 
 
 Had yielded an evening of pain, 
 He had learnt from humanity's teaching 
 
 The lesson — " to die is gain." 
 
 A pauper, an eyesore, a wastrel. 
 
 Out of sight, and right soon out of mind ; 
 
 No tablet recorded the virtues 
 Whereby he excelled mankind ; 
 
 Yet One there was who had writ them 
 
 In letters incarnadine. 
 And He cried, to the witnessing spirits : 
 
 " The heart of this soul is Mine ! " 
 
 " Unto Me he came with a burden 
 
 Too heavy for man to bear, 
 And I deigned, for the service he gave Me, 
 
 That weariful weight to share.
 
 j,Q THE BRIDGE OF SOULS. 
 
 " Henceforward, when night was darkest 
 
 My light was his secret sun ; 
 And the deeds he did in the body 
 
 Were such as I would have done. 
 
 " For the naked he parted his garment 
 His crust was the hungry's fare, 
 
 Of his cup he gave to the thirsty, 
 To the sorry an angel's care. 
 
 " We were one, I and he, on the journey. 
 We were one at bed and at board. 
 
 Well done, good and faithful servant, 
 Enter thou to the joy of thy Lord ! " 
 
 Then, ere ever the blessing was finished 
 That being, decrepit and old. 
 
 Shone forth, as the sun in his splendour. 
 Angelical to behold ; 
 
 And he passed o'er the bridge of the spirits. 
 The first-born, the brightest, the best, 
 
 To seek on the wings of the morning 
 The royal realm of the blest ; 
 
 And anon, from the spheres in sweetness 
 Welled upward the Lamb's new song. 
 
 It rose and it hushed in concord 
 As the spirit was wafted along ;
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS. 
 
 131 
 
 Its Strains overwhelmed as a filtre 
 
 In the lull and thrill of their measure, 
 
 Till the burdened ear was inebriate 
 With a surfeit of purest pleasure. 
 
 It ceased. And I saw in my vision 
 
 Yet another spirit essay 
 To pass that Sentinel godlike, 
 
 The guard of the pilgrims' way ; 
 
 This soul came arrayed in purple. 
 
 His shroud was of linen fine, 
 And he bore in his hands the record 
 
 Of gifts and graces divine. 
 
 A monument lofty recited, 
 
 How within his allotted span 
 He had conquered the kingdom of Mammon, 
 
 And was crowned the typical man ; 
 
 A demigod not more perfect 
 
 With never of evil a taint, 
 His life was the life of a hero. 
 
 His death was the death of a saint ; 
 
 And he tramped with a boastful demeanour 
 
 As a plaintiff claiming his right. 
 But the Sentinel cast upon him 
 
 A prism of piercing light ;
 
 132 
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS. 
 
 And the epitaph's trumpeted virtues — 
 
 A flatterer's fulsome lie — 
 They fell and they crumbled to atoms 
 
 Beneath that unerring Eye ; 
 
 And a voice as of many waters 
 Poured an avalanche into the ear 
 
 Of the soul, as an aspen, a-quiver 
 In an ecstasy of fear ; 
 
 " This bridge," it murmured, " is builded 
 
 Of the hues of surpassing love, 
 And it offers a bounteous passage 
 
 To the many mansions above ; 
 
 " But along the path of the holy 
 May traverse those spirits alone, 
 
 Who, in storm and in still, have known Me, 
 Whom I, as a friend, have known. 
 
 " Dost thou bring for a votive offering 
 This tale of emblazoned sepulture, 
 
 When thy mouth was the mouth of the locust. 
 And thy hand but the claw of the vulture ? 
 
 " Not a fibre I find of mercy 
 
 In the veins of thy hateful heart. 
 
 As thy hand hath done to thy brethren, 
 Be it done unto thee. Depart ! " 
 
 A hush. Then doomed and dumb-stricken 
 That soul from the river's brink
 
 THE BRIDGE OF SOULS. 1 33 
 
 Like lightning was hurled, and I saw it 
 In a tideway of torment sink ; 
 
 While aloft, as an elegy brazen, 
 
 The clang of the bell forth-rolled, 
 And the second death of a spirit 
 
 In knell funereal tolled ; 
 
 And lo ! from the dragons' gorges 
 
 Belched forth in chorus a cry, 
 As of hate, and triumph, and fury, 
 
 With Satanic mockery ; 
 
 And the wail of the lost was stifled 
 
 By the fiery whirlpool's roar, 
 Till my brain grew dazed with the horror 
 
 It could bear to behold no more. 
 
 Enough. The blackness and darkness, 
 
 The bridge for the blessed soul ; 
 The igneous stream of the river, 
 
 UproUed as a mystic scroll ; 
 
 And the vision ethereal vanished 
 
 From the retina of mine eye, 
 And the church reappeared with its tower. 
 
 And the diamond-spangled Wye. 
 
 It was over. My heart beat strangely 
 
 To the pulse of its fitful breath. 
 For the Bridge of Souls I had gazed on 
 
 Was a shadow of Life and Death.
 
 FORCE iMAJEURE.
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 Canto I. 
 
 CLIMAX. 
 
 It chanced when spring was ghstenng and green 
 That Marie fared alone the woods among, 
 And being fateful in her opening heart, 
 Wrought many fantasies of hap and hope 
 Of such soft substance as a girlish dream 
 Is wont to limn, what time the pearly dawn 
 Lays fresher roses on her pillowed cheek, 
 But centring round one outline dim in tinct, 
 The yet unknown fulfilment of her life. 
 
 This one, she felt, would be exceeding rare. 
 With just enough of force to seem divine, 
 Yet treasuring a store of gentle grace, 
 That she might worship fearlessly her god. 
 He should be lissome, light of voice and low. 
 His eye a mystery, his pure embrace 
 The earnest of delicious destiny. 
 And she should live this being's blind delight. 
 In such wise that her smallest whim and will 
 The mainspring of his every act might be ; 
 Or else — in changeful mood — that for his sake 
 Her little life, e'en as a butterfly's.
 
 138 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 Should pass with a short day's departing sun, 
 Leaving its lustre for a memory. 
 
 And mingling with the warp and woof of love 
 Joined all the gold and glitter, sheen and song, 
 Of Mary's month ; for certes, maidenhood 
 Could ill essay to tread the tapestry 
 Of Flora's gorgeous bower, yet remain 
 Free of the sylvan glamour, that sweet spell 
 Bewitching lord and lady, lad and lass, 
 Since time first was. 
 
 Thus pensive while she walked, 
 Joy, as a well-spring, burst forth in her breast. 
 Filling each vein, as t'were, with newest wine ; 
 And then a stronger love of life and earth. 
 Of melody and sunlight, bird and flower, 
 O'erspread her nature as an odour sweet. 
 And she forgot a simple Quaker frock. 
 Which daily vexed her soul, and made it crave 
 To dwell among the greenery apart. 
 At length — t'was noon — she reached a stilly spot. 
 Whence, on the forest marge, twixt ancient yews, 
 The eye may roam afield o'er fallow miles 
 To where the hills shut out a farther world ; 
 And dreaming ever, blushing at the thought 
 Of how her deity was coming soon 
 — She knew he tarried not, yet knew not why ? — 
 Brushed carelessly the tangle from her path 
 To see, as in a frame of leafage, there 
 The portrait painted, and the thought a thing. 
 Fair fancy turned to fate, for it was He !
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 139 
 
 A nartist and a gentleman young Hal 
 Met her with drooping lash and softer speech, 
 To pray a pardon for his presence. She, 
 Much troubled by the thought of her grey frock, 
 Laughed in response, fain to confess, as he, 
 Herself a poacher on the wide preserves 
 Of some superbity, a lord or squire. 
 Mayhap a cotton-lord — it mattered not. 
 Whereat he smiled, and gazed into her eyes, 
 And she smiled too — wherefor she recked not why ? — 
 And so they fell to chirping, yea, these two, 
 Mere tender twitter, as the birds around. 
 But first she praised his landscape, rough yet true, 
 — For he had laboured since the earlier morn 
 To place upon the canvas all his love 
 For all this gold-grey dreamland of the shire- 
 Unconscious paying recompense more rich 
 Than e'en Mecaenas could bestow on art. 
 Then boylike bashful for such sympathy, 
 And much inebriate of her liquid eye, 
 He told the little tale of a young life : 
 How amid strangers strange, his father lost, 
 His mother but a thought beneath the sod. 
 Boyhood had passed as penalty ; but now 
 Arrived at man's estate he stood supreme, 
 Nor owing any, and withal above 
 The influence of ill fortune. So he spake 
 As though his hand, like the magician's stone, 
 Could change all things it touched to solid gold.
 
 140 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 Now Marie — needs must — met his trust with trust. 
 
 She too was orphaned. Yonder 'neath the hill 
 
 Dwelt in seclusion, and in penury, 
 
 Three gentlewomen, aged, and dried, and hard. 
 
 She called them kin. They favoured her with food, 
 
 And donned her dowdy with their purist garb 
 
 — This bitterly — yet were they passing kind 
 
 In granting license from their company. 
 
 Then was life sunlight mid the gladsome glades 
 
 Where she might think her thoughts and sing her songs, 
 
 Dreaming fond day-dreams. After with the eve. 
 
 When to yon bondage-house she homed perforce, 
 
 Girlhood became old age. She yearned for aught, 
 
 Were it but dove or dog to love ; but, no ; 
 
 Her loveless jailers vowed that love was sin. 
 
 Thus from its source, pure, sweet, and crystalline. 
 Flowed on the stream of destiny, which soon 
 Swelled to a volume mightier than their will. 
 Hand wrapped in hand, a strange and subtle sense 
 Of nearness and of dearness made them thrill ; 
 Their lips, like roseleaves fanned by breeze of fate, 
 Just met, and met again, and parted not. 
 T'was play, not passion, yet an earnest play. 
 Where both must win before the game was done. 
 
 Last in the half-voice of a whole delight : 
 " My home is the great city. Come ! " he said, 
 And drew her willing with him, step by step. 
 Until with eyes that looked so fondly far,
 
 FORCE MAJEURE, 141 
 
 With aspen touch and shade of deeper rose — 
 Where once the lily reigned lord paramount 
 Beneath that frock of hateful Quaker grey — 
 A tell-tale smile made answer : " I am thine ! " 
 And soon the woodland knew them nevermore.
 
 Canto IL 
 
 CATASTROPHE. 
 
 'Tis London. Marie wears a wedding ring ; 
 For Hal, though fireful on that fiery night, 
 Set on his Ups the seal of chivalry, 
 And held her vestal. After, when the priest 
 Had bound him to her, bound her to himself, 
 And for a sign of oneness brought her sweets, 
 Such as the soul of maiden craveth much — 
 Colours and textures of the weaver's art, 
 With glories of fair gems, but chief of all 
 His hoarded treasure, a dead mother's pearls. 
 Yet oftimes as he saw her grandly gay, 
 A thought of longing for that Quaker frock 
 Flashed o'er him surfeited with wealth of love. 
 She shone most Marie in her simple garb, 
 And less of Marie likened to the rest. 
 
 But soon this spell of sympathies and sweets, 
 Of toys and toying, gifts and given bliss. 
 Made slenderer his store. At last he cried, 
 Shaking from round his neck the fettering arms, 
 From off his limbs the tender tendril-twine, 
 " Enough — to work — lo ! let me forth to work ! 
 Am I not artist ? Yet my hand is halt. 
 The colours dry upon my palette. Forth ! 
 For, if 'tis true, no life without a love, 
 'Tis truer still, no love without a life."
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 1 43 
 
 Thus filled with faith of fate he fared abroad 
 To find a market for his genius. 
 The path lay open through a thicker throng, 
 Where jostle worth with waste, and need with greed, 
 Lordship with slavery, and grief with mirth ; 
 Where prowls the beast, ravens the bird of prey. 
 Trembles the lamb, where crawls the human snake. 
 And on his way he chanced upon a man, 
 Who bargained with him for the portraiture 
 Of one in honour. Hal the price agreed — 
 T'was triple that his brush had earned before — 
 And then in pride of soul turned back to tell 
 His Marie the glad news, and halve his joy. 
 
 But when he turned, straightway his eye espied 
 The saddest scene. A tragedy of life. 
 Repeated daily with a difference, 
 Each night with some fresh incident rehearsed. 
 Was here enacted, a low street for stage, 
 Chance idlers for an audience, for applause 
 The hollow roar of carts and carriages. 
 A giant, gentle when his brain was cool, 
 But now, distraught with drink, a ruthless brute. 
 Lolled by the doorway of the devil's house, 
 Which took his wage and worth in change for fire. 
 His eye now drowsy, now in wrath aflame. 
 The monster carroUed blasphemies and filth, 
 While with a heavy hammer in his grasp 
 He battered vehement the door ; then yelled, 
 To hear deep curses muttered from within.
 
 144 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 Soon issuing forth an angered minister, 
 Who served his master's poison to mankind, 
 Invoked the law. The law was on his side, 
 As when he changed into a fiend a fool, 
 So when the fiend-made fool disturbed the peace. 
 At his behest men ran in haste to fetch 
 The law's exponent, much afeared themselves 
 Of a huge hammer in a madman's grasp ; 
 But ere the man of law was found, weak love 
 Essayed to lay the tempest by a word. 
 
 Pity ! The wife, a baby at her breast, 
 
 Timorous had watched afar these Bedlam pranks, 
 
 In hopes the wretch, whose blows oftimes had smirched 
 
 The whiteness of sweet flesh she gave for love. 
 
 Might stagger homeward, guided by her arm, 
 
 His mania stilled to stupor. T'was his way 
 
 To drink, and beat, and kiss, and drink again. 
 
 But he, not heeding who had interposed 
 
 To save him from the law, high raised his hand. 
 
 And aiming at her hit the devil's door, 
 
 That echoing to the hammer's thud loud creaked. 
 
 Then in good sooth a careless crowd agape 
 
 Cried " Shame ! " yet none foursquare and masterful 
 
 Stood forth to rescue. Plaintive rose her plea : 
 
 " Be still. Come home ! " and he in mockery 
 
 " Home shall thou go as oxen are sent home, 
 
 With this for pole-axe ! " Quick wtth glare of eye 
 
 He clutched her tangled tresses in his grip 
 
 All reckless of the infant at her breast, 
 
 And swung the hammer o'er her.
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 1 45 
 
 Then anon 
 Venting the voice of horror, from the crowd — 
 The surging crowd of cowardice — outsprang 
 The artist Hal, One single bound, and he — 
 Albeit impotent to stay its force — 
 GrappJed with energy that cruel arm, 
 If only to divert the murderous blow. 
 The weapon fell. Not on a clinging wife, 
 It spared the baby, but it crushed the hand — 
 That hand which was the fortune and the fate 
 Of Hal and Marie— aye, that good right hand, 
 And burst its bones to splintered agonies.
 
 Canto III. 
 
 DOLOUR. 
 
 Poor Hal they carried to a hospital, 
 
 Where buzzed and chattered curious and charmed 
 
 With all the complications of his case 
 
 A horde of student-surgeons. Those around 
 
 Smiled faintly to each other at the sight 
 
 Of cheeks tear-furrowed, of a breast upheaved, 
 
 Of the deep moan that told a bursting heart. 
 
 Not knowing that the hammer's blow of fate 
 
 Had crushed a noble life. They mocking thought 
 
 Such sobs were for the agony of nerves ; 
 
 Wherefore their smile. But soon a wonderment 
 
 Eclipsed such callous sneer, for when their chief 
 
 Ordered an anodyne, Hal cried aloud : 
 
 " Forbear. No bugbear is your knife to me ! " 
 
 Howbeit, they, not heeding his behest. 
 
 Imposed the drowsy vapour on his mouth, 
 
 Saving thereby all consciousness of pain ; 
 
 To him most merciful, withal the mean 
 
 To let them amputate with certain skill 
 
 That leverage of limning, his right hand. 
 
 Ill news hath wings ; yet this, the worst of news. 
 Reached not the ear of Marie as she sat. 
 And watching for his footfall held her breath. 
 Anon, night darkened, and her little heart
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 1 47 
 
 Grew larger, as it seemed. To banish thought, 
 
 And grant perchance the pleasure of surprise 
 
 To him, thus truant, she assumed her best, 
 
 A robe of silvern sheen, his own design. 
 
 Wherewith for fitting ornaments she took 
 
 His mother's pearls, and deftly fitting them 
 
 Around a dainty neck tripped light away, 
 
 And tripping fell, whence scattering cast the pearls— 
 
 A shower precious. Then in truth she knew. 
 
 His lingering meant not truancy but ill, 
 
 And in this omen read their destiny. 
 
 After, to her now waiting, sore distrest, 
 Came one the messenger of evil fate, 
 Who brought a missive medical and hard — 
 Her master had survived a dread ordeal, 
 But was a-fret and fevered. Hence perchance 
 Her presence might the symptoms aggravate ; 
 Best would it be to trust the nurses' care, 
 And wait for tidings. Marie little recked 
 Such cold embargo — Had she not for balm 
 A lover's love, a woman's sympathy ? 
 Hence swiftly hastened to the hospital 
 And bringing tenderness for benison, 
 The comfort of a touch, worked miracle, 
 In such wise that he smiled, and smiling slept. 
 
 His cure was weariful. A gentle soul, 
 Like to a soaring bird, whose pinion fleet. 
 E'en on his voyage heavenwards in mid air 
 Is sundered by the fowler's bolt, repined,
 
 148 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 And thus prolonged his sickness. Marie brave 
 Her utmost toiled to give him heart of grace, 
 Yet he, with stronger sight, foreboded naught 
 Save future horror. Then as days rolled on, 
 To him the spectre neared. Mankind had been 
 As friends or patrons, in the past ; but now 
 Of art bereft, and having naught wherewith 
 To shelter Marie from their ravening, 
 His fellows seemed as wolves. Nor her caress, 
 Nor happy smile, nor calm reposeful face. 
 Nor fearless love could kill the cankerworm 
 Of crushing care that fed upon his brain, 
 And changed blush-rose to ashen, a dulled eye 
 From confidence to cow'ring and mistrust. 
 The world was overmuch for Hal. Their force 
 Long ere nerves tense regained, his little store 
 Was spent, and after Marie's pretty toys. 
 They fed on gems and gewgaws, lockets, rings, 
 Armlets and necklets, satins, silks, and lace. 
 While day by day the artless artist tramped 
 To beg for labour, and in lieu of bread 
 To be accorded pity — harder stone 
 Than ere was crashed against a martyr's skull. 
 T'was toil in vain. Next — like to mariners 
 Upon mid-ocean cast, who water stint. 
 If haply they might cross a vessel's course — 
 Craving to save their last, amid the foul 
 They sought an empty nest and hungring hoped. 
 
 But Hall one morning met abroad a friend, 
 And told his tale. To him this honest friend,
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. I49 
 
 With all the forceful point of plainer speech, 
 Gave stern advice. " Thy wife is thine, to keep 
 In such wise as thou found her, not to starve. 
 Return her at all hazard to her kin. 
 Trust me to bear the cost. In happier days 
 Unite once more. To her this is but just." 
 
 Hal owned his friend, if bitter, spoke aright, 
 And grasping at the proffered dole, half bade 
 His Marie quit their poverty. But she, 
 Her little hand upon his shoulder smiled : 
 " Where'er thou dwellest, let me ever dwell. 
 Thy lot be mine. Thy God shall be my God ! " 
 And Hall could not gainsay her loyalty. 
 
 Yet soon hard circumstance and Marie blanched 
 
 Affected him in mind, as poisoned blood 
 
 Impairs the vigour of a lusty frame. 
 
 To speak, to strive, he ceased, but night and day 
 
 Grew moodier and blacker in his soul. 
 
 Anon he sought in blasphemy relief. 
 
 Yet stilled as Marie kissed the curse away. 
 
 Anon his soul waxed stronger than his heart, 
 
 So that the demon of dark destiny 
 
 Drove him to frenzy, and forgetfulness 
 
 Of the great treasure left, his Marie's love. 
 
 Another hurrying moon, and then these two 
 
 Faced famine, having tasted for long hours 
 
 The pangs of hunger in a land of food. 
 
 Their goods were gone ; their raiment wretched rags ;
 
 15° 
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 The ruffian of their haunt demanded rent, 
 
 Nay more, in accents of a scoffing scorn 
 
 Bade Marie earn her bread as bread is earned 
 
 By animals and victims of despair. 
 
 That word brought horror to a guileless mind— 
 
 It forced the girl-wife clutch her wedding-ring, 
 
 As the high charter of pure honesty. 
 
 But then the thought, " Lo! one more meal!" prevailed; 
 
 Hal's pledge of troth she vending homeward sped, 
 
 Food in her hand, and anguish in her soul. 
 
 Too late ! she knew it not, but one had given 
 
 To him an hungered fire. And now the man 
 
 Was not her Hal, her lover Hal, but mad. 
 
 As at a stranger so he glared on her, 
 
 With loud " Begone ! Enough, enough of thee. 
 
 Whose face is hateful having brought ill fate ! 
 
 Begone, or I may hurt you, girl, begone ! " 
 
 Then she, perceiving from his eye the harm. 
 
 In piteous plaint : " I bring you, dear one, bread ! " 
 
 Whereon the madman gripped her precious loaf, 
 
 And cast it yelling to the street below. 
 
 Such, such his answer. Marie tarried not ; 
 
 Her heart gave one great throb, and then she turned 
 
 To flee his arm upraised, his maniac threats, 
 
 Aghast and ashen, aspen-like and cowed, 
 
 Her hollow cry—" That it should come to this ! " 
 
 She wandered aimless. Such divine dolour 
 Was printed on soft girlish lineaments ,
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 151 
 
 That passers, spell-bound by her loveliness, 
 
 Whispered what evil had befallen one 
 
 So different from the herd in gentle grace ? 
 
 Yet all lent homage to sad modesty, 
 
 And thus perforce forebore. At last she paused. 
 
 And pausing met the sunbeam of kind eyes, 
 
 That seemed to shed the warmth of sympathy. 
 
 The voice too was of rarer courtesy. 
 
 That softly ventured : " Pardon. Let me help. 
 
 Sore troubled art thou. Trust, I pray, to one 
 
 Who never yet deceived or man or maid." 
 
 She gazed into his sunshine, labouring hard 
 To force the inspiration of a word ; 
 Then faltering spake she knew not what she spake, 
 Her note the mourning of a stricken dove. 
 But he, his glance upon a thin white hand. 
 And marking how no ring proclaimed her wife, 
 Drew her away as draws the mill-stream leaves.
 
 Canto IV. 
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX. 
 
 Kind eyes, a mouth sweet, sad, and subtly strong, 
 
 A mouth too masterful without the eye 
 
 Yet most suggestive of sincerity, 
 
 Alike from weakness free and wickedness ; 
 
 A brow grand, grave, and generous ; a hand 
 
 Hale without harm : a broad and brawny chest, 
 
 And all the proud divinity of height — 
 
 Such shone the form and figure, might and mien. 
 
 Of Marie's godsend. More, he walked as one 
 
 Cradled in riches, careless of the care 
 
 That curses loves and lives, if proud and poor ; 
 
 His only burden the perplexing " why? " 
 
 That ever wearies men of thought with thought, 
 
 Like waves that cease not beating on the shore. 
 
 And Marie from the moment when they met 
 
 Lean'd trustingly, yet with the lessened trust 
 
 Of one whose trust in manhood was forelost, 
 
 Upon this upright pillar ; if she hoped, 
 
 T'was e'en to be his handmaid, yea to slave 
 
 A menial among his menials, 
 
 And in the luxury of toil forget. 
 
 But thitherward his soul fared not, for when 
 
 He gazed into her azure pitiful — 
 
 E'en as a summer sky that should be bright
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. I 53 
 
 Dulled into shadow by a fleeting shower — 
 It seemed as though one long unwitting quest 
 His past had been for treasure, sudden trove 
 Where least t'was sought. Oftimes, so he recalled, 
 Had womanhood, aye beauteous womanhood. 
 Pressed him to passion by those subtler signs, 
 Whose meaning was not hid. Free he escaped 
 Impervious to such influence ; but now 
 A wild, weird spell passed o'er the man. He loved, 
 And loving pressed her homewards to his heart. 
 
 " Surely a dream, a mirage, or a mist ? 
 
 This transformation, as a pantomime. 
 
 Must have been sent to mock her misery 
 
 With tinsel grand, illusive artifice ? " 
 
 Well might she put the query, since, arrayed 
 
 In garments glorious as her rags were sere. 
 
 She basked amid the odour of fair flowers 
 
 Far from the false foul city and its woe. 
 
 The pillar, towering majestic, proved 
 
 To her beside him strange reality, 
 
 A bitter joy, a gain to make afraid ; 
 
 For soon in pressing dainties to her lips 
 
 With fruits and wine that gladdens, he confessed 
 
 The yearnings of his heart. Then did Marie 
 
 RecoiUng tremble for the memory 
 
 Of one she took for better or for worse ; 
 
 Yet bridling for a fancied injury 
 
 She checked the welling tear and wistful sob 
 
 With this — " he was not worthy ! " — and allowed
 
 154 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 A love unloved to revel in her sweets, 
 Insensate by the blindness of pure self 
 Of sullying and soiling, harm and hurt. 
 
 Then he, his high heart whole with happiness : 
 
 " This mixture of our destinies is fate. 
 
 I yield me joyously. Yield also thou. 
 
 Men call me Beryl, gem of paradise. 
 
 So let me add unto my coronal 
 
 A priceless pearl ? " " Not pearl ! " she sudden gasped, 
 
 For at the recollection of Hal's pearls, 
 
 The omen of her ills, a tender tear 
 
 Filmed o'er her eye. But he " My sapphire then ? " 
 
 Whereto she answered " Sapphire an thou will'st ! " 
 
 And in an under-voice " Sapphira false ! " 
 
 He heard it not, but toying told her tales 
 
 Of all his grandeur and his kingliness 
 
 Among the woe- worn workeis of mankind ; 
 
 And she half listening, half lazed, too weak 
 
 To stem the tide, as spindrift drifted on. 
 
 T'was such a travesty of the old play ; 
 
 Fain would she jeer to see the pillar bend 
 
 Beneath her touch. Faugh ! a grim travesty ! 
 
 She loved this Beryl as she loved his wine, 
 
 And cornucopia of delicious things ; 
 
 Not with the love of lover womanhood. 
 
 Rather the hunger of a starving hound 
 
 That licks and loves, and licking loves its bone. 
 
 Beryl in truth inebriate with joy 
 
 Had need of hellebore. For in hot haste
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 155 
 
 To win the luscious prize he deemed his own 
 
 He never thought — " What of this strange girl's heart ! " 
 
 Enough that he, her Sultan, longing loved 
 
 In truth and tenderness. Yet had he eyes 
 
 To view beyond the horizon of high hope, 
 
 He had been cautioned by a cold response, 
 
 When in bold words he prayed her to be his. 
 
 She trembling told him : " Great and good art thou, 
 
 A wastrel I, subservient to thy will ; 
 
 If first thou wilt but humour one so poor 
 
 In this wise : bear me where thou wilt afar 
 
 Beyond the ocean, never to return. 
 
 And further of thy magnanimity 
 
 Ask me concerning neither kith nor kin — 
 
 The life that has been or its agony — 
 
 I crave not this by right, but as of grace." 
 
 Which pledges both he gave her with both hands. 
 
 And then in graver mood : " Our real life 
 
 Begins from now. What has been has not been. 
 
 Since being is not being without love." 
 
 " One other boon " she pleaded, " Thou art rich, 
 And being so, superior to loss. 
 A debt I owe. Would I might pay that debt, 
 Before what was is merged in what will be ?" 
 Then as her eye bent wistful for his word. 
 It came right readily. A scrip he pressed 
 Of value beyond ftmcy in her hand. 
 Whereat she fell to sobbing. Such excess
 
 156 FORCE MAJEURE 
 
 Aroused but his amazement, for he read 
 The riddle wrong, not knowing womankind. 
 
 That night his wealth of scrip she sent to Hal, 
 And with it this, baptized in human tears : 
 " I left in deathly terror. Now perchance 
 Have found a refuge. Fate has parted us . 
 Forget, and thus live down the thought of one, 
 Thy evil genius. Dream of her as dead." 
 
 She slept the wife of Hal, but on the morn 
 With Beryl crossed the seas, and let him place 
 Upon her finger false a mockery. 
 The symbol of unfaith, a wedding-ring.
 
 Canto V, 
 
 DISILLUSION. 
 
 Deserted, stricken as for death, and drear, 
 Hal from his madness woke as wakes a child, 
 Helpless and pitiful. Fain would he wail 
 For " Mother ! Mother ! " as in years gone by. 
 So feeble felt he, all forlorn, afaint, 
 Not recking what had happened, but opprest 
 By terrors vague, the harbinger of ill. 
 Ere long he whispered " Marie ? " — Yet again 
 " Love, Marie, where art thou ? I feel the end. 
 Oh ! Marie, come and bless me with thy lips ! " 
 None answered, none. For hours he lay alone, 
 And lying thus endured a weight of awe, 
 Until with brain distraught without he gazed. 
 And saw swift clouds course white across the sky. 
 And seemed on them to rise and float above 
 With motion glorious. Then the fever heat 
 Once more inflamed his forehead, and he thought 
 He rode upon the pinions of broad winds. 
 Beholding far beneath upon dull earth 
 His idol, his Marie ; thus fantasied. 
 It seemed to him his aching arms were wings, 
 Whence tottering to the casemate he essayed 
 In stress of brain-whirl to escape and cast 
 His fevered body from the giddy height ; 
 When at the door there entered one to bear
 
 158 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 Marie's farewell — her letter and its scrip, 
 The order of release from pauperdom — 
 And this one recking how the man was mad, 
 By force prevented suicide, and held 
 The struggling wretch for charity to care, 
 And save from fate — the grip of greedy death. 
 
 Long days, and longer nights he moaning lay, 
 
 His mind a mirage. After, when hot blood 
 
 Grew cooler, thought arranged the past, whereby 
 
 He recognised full loss, for not Marie, 
 
 But one in sombre garb sat by his side, 
 
 And tended him of mercy, not of love — 
 
 A woman, woman yet unwomanly, 
 
 In having flung from her a woman's lot. 
 
 She cared for curing, curing lost her care ; 
 
 Whence fearful lest the letter of Marie 
 
 Should fever him afresh, secreted it 
 
 Till time had strength restored, or potent drugs. 
 
 'Twas well. Beneath the fatal blow he reeled ; 
 
 Yet being feeble, fretted more than fumed, 
 
 His first and hasty venom : " Let her go ! 
 
 What worth for man is a fair-weather love ? " 
 
 But next he 'gan to brood. Great was the wrong, 
 
 And as a poison filtered through his brains 
 
 With lust of vengeance. Not on her, so dear. 
 
 Rather on him who had befouled his nest. 
 
 The man whose signature glared on the scrip. 
 
 Hence, when his feet tiod firm, when force renewed 
 
 Sufficed for journeying, he sped to seek
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 1 59 
 
 The home and style of this his enemy. 
 
 Such news he gained anon. Beryl was known, 
 
 As towers and spires ; nay the gossips told 
 
 A tale of mystery anent his flight, 
 
 With many jeers at King Cophetua, 
 
 Who halved an empire with a beggar-maid. 
 
 Such words were goads to pierce and wound the man; 
 
 To gold he changed the scrip, and swift essayed 
 
 With that same magic key by Beryl given 
 
 Where among nations they had fled to learn ? 
 
 No tongue told this, nathless he gained a clue, 
 
 And straitway fared abroad in quest of blood.
 
 Canto VI. 
 
 NEMESIS. 
 
 On Marie Beryl more than lavished love, 
 Yet did fierce sunlight beat upon sheer ice, 
 And shone to melt its surface into tears, 
 Nor might the hottest rays bring warmth ; anon, 
 The poor child, yet a child, in glory clad. 
 Would sit, and look, and pine, and always look, 
 As haunted by a spectre from afar. 
 
 Then Beryl learnt his error, but the theft 
 
 Of what was Hal's knew not. His mind surmised. 
 
 That Marie fretted for a love, the frost 
 
 Of circumstance had nipped, yet not quite killed ; 
 
 And dared to hope this memory might fade. 
 
 Still, as the days rolled on, and naught sufficed. 
 
 Nor change of scene, nor luxury, nor life. 
 
 Nor all the gaud of nature and of art, 
 
 A great heart burst its anguish and outspake. 
 
 They sat beneath the olives by the sea. 
 
 Soft fiinned an evening breeze, a distant lute 
 
 Made harmony with plash of violet 
 
 On golden sands, and faintly purpling skies. 
 
 The very air seemed tense with mystery. 
 
 And while his clasped a pulseless hand, he caught
 
 1 62 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 A whisper of quick breath, " O, had I wings, 
 
 The silvern wings of purity and love, 
 
 Then would I flee away and be at rest ! " 
 
 Whence broke his pledge and asked the fateful " Why ? " 
 
 She echoed " Why? " and gazed across the sea, 
 As though the winds and waves might tell a tale 
 Why waters wet, why breezes chill the blood, 
 Or why the loadstone hungers for its steel ! 
 
 Again, in tremulous, deep-chested tone 
 
 For both their sakes he craved full confidence. 
 
 " Why ?" she re-echoed " Why ? " Then cast abroad 
 
 An eye of horror, lest the leaves should hear, 
 
 And clutched his arm and gasped : " The ' Why' is guilt ! 
 
 And God avenges guilt. The hour has come — 
 
 Now, even now — Oh, save me, Beryl, save ! 
 
 Look ! " 
 
 Beryl answered her " I see a man. 
 Approaching. Thin is he, one-handed, pale. 
 No dread avenging angel from on high ! " 
 
 But Marie rigid, faint, with heaving breast ; 
 " Fly. He will kill us. Beryl. I was his ! " 
 
 A trice and Hal confronted them. A trice. 
 
 And Beryl felt the smart of injury. 
 
 The sting of insult. At Hal's feet Marie
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. [63 
 
 Fell as a Magdalen before her Christ. 
 
 Then Beryl, though his majesty might crush 
 
 A man one-handed, had he willed it so, 
 
 With knightly courtesy held forth his glove, 
 
 And with " Enough !— my gage — we meet !" bestowed 
 
 The symbol of his blood Hal coveted ; 
 
 Who grasped the challenge, flinging loud of throat : 
 
 " Now ! By your manhood now ! See here the choice 
 
 Of weapons. Choose, for one of us must die ! " 
 
 Scarce were the words outspoken when Marie 
 
 Thrust a slight form between them as of right. 
 
 *' Fire both ! " she shrilled, the music of her voice 
 
 Changed by keen agony to discord sharp : 
 
 "And let your lead pierce through this broken heart ! 
 
 Kill me, I supplicate. 'Tis I have sinned, 
 
 Earning the hate of both." 
 
 " Aside ! " cried Hal. 
 But Beryl stood in silence. Then Marie 
 Once more implored " Me make the sacrifice 
 Of sullied honour ! Let me win your peace ! " 
 Whereat Hal gnashed his teeth, but Beryl spake : 
 "I own, unwittingly, I wronged this man. 
 He asks for retribution. Let him fire — 
 I am a mark not easy to be missed — 
 And glut his soul. But him for conscience sake 
 I may not injure." Uttering thus he stood. 
 Steadfast, unflinching, ready for his death.
 
 164 FORCE MAJEURE. 
 
 Hal baffled glowered. This was not to be 
 
 For soon, as Marie laid a loving hand 
 
 Upon his murderous weapon, such a spell 
 
 Of soothing sufferance stilled his inmost soul, 
 
 That fain he dropped it with a godlike cry 
 
 Of poignant anguish. " Sir," he sobbed, ' 'my life 
 
 Was thine to wreck as thou my love has wrecked. 
 
 T'were better both had perished, Thou and I, 
 
 For sparing me perforce thou spar'st thyself." 
 
 '• Not so ! " cried Beryl, " Pain as keen as thine 
 
 Such love as Marie owes may e'en assuage. 
 
 The wounds to last are mine. T'was once my boast, 
 
 I never injured either man or maid. 
 
 That boast is empty now. More grievous still, 
 
 The task is set me to uproot a love 
 
 Entwined around the fibres of my heart. 
 
 Sir, I restore thee that I ne'er had stol'n. 
 
 Had I but known t'was thine. Marie, farewell ! " 
 
 He spake and in the gathering twilight went ; 
 "While, as his figure lessened, so it seemed 
 As though an aureole played around the head 
 That, being good, bent low beneath his cross. 
 
 Last, in an utter weariness of woe, 
 
 Hal murmured sadly " Come with me, Marie ! " 
 
 But she : " It is not meet. I am no wife 
 
 Lo ! from my hand I cast this ring — not thine.
 
 FORCE MAJEURE. 165 
 
 For thine was turned to bread ; to bread flung forth 
 Abroad in madness. Half the sin is thine, 
 And for the rest I am unworthy. Go ! " 
 
 Yet might not Hal thus part, for of the love 
 He once had borne her most was welling back, 
 As fairer sunrays when the storm has passed. 
 Her hand he grasped with : " An I can forgive. 
 Forgive thou also. For the days to come 
 — They may for each be short — let us abide 
 As man and wife." 
 
 A bitter, bitter sigh 
 Upheaved her very soul. The paradise 
 A girlish fancy framed, wherein she loved 
 And breathed in happy radiance, was no more, 
 Nor ever to return. She answered him : 
 " What has been bound and loosed, no art shall bind 
 A second time. I am thy sister, Hal. 
 Be thou my brother. We have lived our life."
 
 ULTRA.
 
 ULTRA. 
 
 O Earth, O Mother Earth, incarnadine 
 
 With all the torrent of a noble flood. 
 
 As from a chalice desecrate of wine. 
 
 The ichor of a God, a hero's blood ; 
 
 May sweets supernal shroud in mantling mist 
 
 A form so fair, a face so fondly kissed ! 
 
 Yet who shall deem it waste, this death of glory, 
 
 The bettering of being, being great, 
 
 A death to live in monumental story 
 
 Too soon alas ! — yet happier than too late ? 
 
 Perfected in a span, be it with tears. 
 
 He reaps the harvest of a myriad years. 
 
 But, oh, those tears, those tears of blood and pain. 
 Wrung from the horror of a heart betrayed ; 
 A heart that never in this world again 
 Shall throb in symphony with gentle maid. 
 Nor, as coy roses open to the sky, 
 Allure the laughter of her beaming eye ! 
 
 Add this of agony to mortal anguish — 
 What might have been, yet now is all forelost — 
 It seems a double-death so long to languish 
 By the dark river that must needs be crossed. 
 Come swift, pale Sleep, thou peerless anodyne, 
 And on thy pillow let the soul recline !
 
 170 
 
 ULTRA. 
 
 Death lingers, poising as on vulture-wings, 
 Outstretched, esurient, pendent o'er the prey. 
 What time a memory more vivid brings 
 Each item of the past in strong array. 
 Recalling, as a picture, every scene ; 
 The passions of a life-time that has been. 
 
 All in the mirror of a thrilling trance 
 
 He saw, he felt, he played his part again ; 
 
 Years flitted by him in a single glance, 
 
 The heights of hope, the pulses of each vein— 
 
 A drama re-enacted from the first. 
 
 But with a climax changed, a thread reversed. 
 
 The path of childhood upward to the man 
 With more than manhood's potency of feeling ; 
 Desire expectant for a little span. 
 Then a faint fragrance o'er his senses stealing ; 
 The rapture, and the torment, and the bliss, 
 When tryst was troth, and troth a binding kiss. 
 
 A tale oft told — the tale of maid and swain ; 
 The iron and the magnet ; sun and flower ; 
 Streams sweetly confluent, journeying amain ; 
 Heart fused with heart, the heart a mutual dower ; 
 And — full fruition of a virile vole — 
 Twain parts united in a perfect whole 
 
 Thus freshed the dawning of their little day. 
 To be alive and feel was passing pleasure,
 
 ULTRA. I 7 I 
 
 Come weal, come woe, or dirge, or roundelay, 
 Each for the other poured in mystic measure 
 A philtre overflowing ; yet so soon 
 To be depleted by the stroke of noon. 
 
 Can bars, can bolts ward off the silent thief 
 From muUion to embrasure mounting higher, 
 A wretch whose rending talon would as lief 
 Forego the spoil as tow a lambent fire ? 
 A thief thus bold, a prisoner of hate, 
 Their shadow followed with the foot of fate. 
 
 Such spice of jealousy imparted zest 
 
 To appetite for a deUcious form. 
 
 And lust a tumult raised within his breast 
 
 As the upheaval of a tropic storm. 
 
 Little she knew her lovelit eyes a spell 
 
 Had cast more potent than the powers of hell. 
 
 Yet were these rivals leashed by sacred ties. 
 Who of one cohort bore the common name, 
 Who served one sovereign, faced his enemies, 
 A flag safeguarding of untarnished fame ; 
 Comrades in arms enrolled to dare and do. 
 To win the laurel or to share the rue. 
 
 A darkling cloudlet, small as human hand. 
 On the horizon seaward glimmering 
 Vaged as a portent from the orient land 
 Of forces 'neath the surface simmering.
 
 172 
 
 ULTRA. 
 
 While rumour frequent travelling from afar, 
 In terror-stricken tones foreboded war. 
 
 Silence in heaven a space. Then long and loud 
 The bugle belching forth with horrid bray — 
 As, sudden and surcharged, a thundercloud 
 High heaven shall plunge in elemental fray — 
 Doom-bearing to the loves of many a maid. 
 Loves far too vivid to be lost in shade. 
 
 The din of arms she heard, the march of men, 
 The droning drum, the cruel clarion's call — 
 For him such omen of the event, as when 
 A king beheld the writing on the wall — 
 Perish ambition, an it bring her loss, 
 Who valued glory as the vilest dross ! 
 
 Not so her man of honour. Mettled pride 
 
 Bore him on wings of wind far, far away 
 
 To the ingathering of a harvest-tide, 
 
 Where men, as grain, stood massed in close array, 
 
 While a red Reaper, hovering o'er the strife. 
 
 Put in his sickle to the swathes of life. 
 
 Spirit of slaughter, puissant son of sin, 
 Thou dire inventor of destructive art, 
 By thy dread empire without, within, 
 Spare the spring blossom of a maiden's heart, 
 Nor seek with such poor innocence to swell 
 The choking garners of thy nether hell !
 
 ULTRA. 173 
 
 What ! shall the lion's ruddled tusks forego 
 The daintiest morsel of his gory meal ! 
 What ! shall the boa a meed of mercy show, 
 Her gaping gorge, unfeeling, cannot feel ! 
 Who takes the sword grasps at a vision vain, 
 For many go but few come back again. 
 
 A voice susurrant : " While in mad melee, 
 
 " Strive friend and foe in agonistic band, 
 
 " A vagrom bullet kills, and who shall say 
 
 " Whence came the billet, from whose master hand ? 
 
 " Smoke shall conceal and cannon dull the ear, 
 
 " When one in front drops riddled by the rear. 
 
 " Let him but fall, this darling devil-dare, 
 
 " Then of sad elegies a watershed, 
 
 " And lovely woman, fickle as the air, 
 
 " Shall seek the solace of a bridal bed. 
 
 " Thus he who lost shall win, while he who won, 
 
 " Rests as a giant that his course hath run." 
 
 The dusky foemen massed as clouds of night 
 Where trends a vale, our troops athwart their flank ; 
 And while, with nostrils fuming for the fight, 
 In trumpet tones he cheered the foremost rank, 
 Rearward his comrade seized the cruel chance 
 To countermand his signal to advance. 
 
 A chance, alas ! Since he, devoid of fear. 
 Leader of men spurred forth with waving sword,
 
 174 ULTRA. 
 
 To gain the palm or find a soldier's bier, 
 VVhiche'er the trembling balance might award. 
 Onward, eyes front, he pressed his noble steed, 
 Nor recked who followed in his headlong speed. 
 
 The cruel cannon blared its roar and fire, 
 He heeded not, his gaze upon the foe, 
 Nor heard the bugle sounding to retire, 
 Nor swerved his head to learn that it was so. 
 Nor knew his rival's treachery, till when. 
 Alone he faced a line of armed men. 
 
 Then in a glance he viewed the coward's back. 
 
 Whose cunning sold him to the sable foe, 
 
 While all the men he led to the attack 
 
 With the word " Come ! " had come, but come to go ; 
 
 And, in the second he beheld them fly, 
 
 Knew of a certainty that he must die. 
 
 Turn ? Turn ? Shall manhood condescend to turn ? 
 No soldier he who yields a single inch ; 
 What though the very ground beneath him burn, 
 His duty bids him stand. Let others flinch ! 
 Teeth set, eyes right, sword flashing, all forelost, 
 Headlong he charged the centre of a host. 
 
 They parted, as by magic, then received 
 
 The solitary captain as he rode. 
 
 His weapon gleaming ruddy, for it rieved 
 
 Helmet and hauberk. Yea, that sword-hand sowed 
 
 Sporadic death with broad and certain sweep. 
 
 As one who deals the measure he must reap !
 
 ULTRA. 175 
 
 Anon, as carrion in sudden dread 
 Their prey shall quit, they wavered ; yet one blow 
 Outstretched the victim, dying 'mid his dead, 
 And left him on the shambles lone and low. 
 To think his latest thoughts, and thinking feel 
 A wound more ghastly than the Indian steel. 
 
 Aye, forfeit was fruition of sweet love, 
 
 If death, thought he, the knot can quite dissever. 
 
 If parted, one on earth and one above 
 
 Our separated spirits meet not ever ; 
 
 If lips alone may seal the truest kiss. 
 
 If flesh and blood Hmit the sphere of bliss ! 
 
 To her he gave the higher with the lower, 
 Not manhood only, but man's total whole, 
 And of these welded gifts the grander dower 
 Was the sublime devotion of his soul ; 
 She too had yielded him the better part, 
 The priceless treasure of a woman's heart. 
 
 Such link the sword of hell might not divide — 
 An death be but a changement of condition ; 
 His purer self should wander to her side 
 In worship faithful after his transition ; 
 As in the shadow of a summer's night. 
 Though all be darkened, warmth itself is light. 
 
 But, ah, his presence would she know ; or feel. 
 Like fragrance floating on the Zephyr's breeze 
 A subtle essence o'er her senses steal 
 And with soft suasion all her being seize
 
 1 76 ULTRA. 
 
 Then lock their spirits in one close embrace, 
 Soul joined to soul, as mingled face with face ? 
 
 " Who dare accuse," he shrilled, " The God of love 
 
 " Of leaving love to moulder in the grave, 
 
 " When in full harmony beneath, above, 
 
 " Deep calleth deep, and wave re-echoes wave ? 
 
 " Departed souls shall they not energise 
 
 " For their beloved in supreme emprise ? 
 
 Fond fancy ! Yet, the thought of such as passed 
 Before us through the portal of dread death, 
 Strong in a life less cumbered than the last, 
 The encasing shell shed with their final breath. 
 And wielding influence for those they love, 
 As for his nesting mate the circling dove, 
 
 Fulfils with reverence. Thus we live surrounded 
 By tender voices, eyes with pity gleaming, 
 And our horizon is not sharply bounded 
 By the harsh outline of external seeming. 
 Beyond whose scope the happy valleys lie 
 In a vast continent of endless sky. 
 
 Perchance, such haze of fantasy crept o'er him 
 What time the light of life was slowly failing, 
 While the still tideway ever onward bore him, 
 With rudder loose, o'er lulling billows sailing 
 To where the whirlpool sinks in awful chasm — 
 The dream of death ! Anon, one rending spasm ,
 
 ULTRA. 
 
 And on this earth he drew his latest breath, 
 Which rushing as a meteor into space — 
 The great unknown — his body left to death, 
 The eyes upstaring from a ghastly face, 
 Transfigured by a vision, and their last. 
 His eyes no longer. He had from them passed. 
 
 And thou, this cup of agony who filled, 
 Snake-heart, imprinted with the traitor's brand, 
 Come, take possession, now that thou hast killed, 
 Beauty awaits the pressure of thy hand ! 
 Her bed is all made ready ! Thither hie. 
 And reap the recompense of treachery ! 
 
 177 
 
 What ! Is the vintage verjuice ? Wherefore turn 
 With glance of loathing a dishonoured head ? 
 Let thy false blood with lust inhuman burn. 
 Go, wreak its passion on the holy dead ! 
 Nay, take thy fill of rapture, be it cold. 
 And, in her corse, thy handiwork behold ! 
 
 Where a green willow in our English land 
 Mourns to the violet, she found her nest ; 
 While he lies stark upon the Indian sand, 
 A hero unanealed, yet at rest. 
 One in their one fulfilment, one in heart. 
 They sleep asunder. Do they sleep apart ?
 
 RED MUSIC.
 
 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Where is the conscience athirst for a beatific to-morrow, 
 Voiding the lust of to-day ; where knowledge certain as eyesight. 
 True as the kiss of peace with God Himself for a lover 1 
 Gone from a world well pleased to grope in the spark-light of science. 
 Questing with struggle and stress the kingdom of gold for a summit, 
 Crapulous in desire, its glorv the vanishing sunray. 
 " Vanity of vanities! All is vanity 1 " thmidered the Preacher, 
 " Saving the long-long home, when the silver chord shall be loosened, 
 " Broken the golden bowl! ". The home of science is charnel, 
 Exile as Pluto's ; whose beams her hierophants — blind of perspective, 
 Dreaming the pessimist dream of no ocean beyond the horizon — 
 Bolster with banter obtuse : " Evergreen grew the bud of the hope- 
 plant, 
 " But 'twas a donkey that browsed it ! " Thus, thus, an annihilate 
 
 future 
 Limits all life to life. Let be. Let us see what the end is 1 
 
 PRELUDE. 
 
 Heritress sole of beauty was fond Basilissa, the artiste, 
 Bom in a cyclone and lulled to rest by the dirge of the storm- 
 bird, 
 Cradled on floods and baptized in the parting sun-tears of sorrow, 
 Shed forth of motherly eyes, already hazing to darkness. 
 Queenly in feature, in form, in a presence that gendered to freedom. 
 Queenly in voice and ear, majestic in musical conscience, 
 Queenly in depth of thought, in the poet's power of picture. 
 Queen of magnetic eye, and more than queenly in genius.
 
 1 82 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Was she plebeian in pocket, plebeian in homelier vesture, 
 Low in her scant of food, in weariful walks to employment, 
 Low in a lonely life, an orphan with art for companion — 
 Even the language of sound, the inter-communion of nations — 
 For to her God was art, art God effulgent in music? 
 
 See her then richest in all save the one thing needful to mammon, 
 
 Rich in a brain w^hich combined with the commoner gift of 
 perception 
 
 Fancy, colour, and form with flux of passionate feeling : 
 
 Rich in a modest mien, for very intensity gentle. 
 
 Lit by the tenderest light, a look so truthfully noble. 
 
 That the bad were repelled as it were by a heavenly vision ; 
 
 Richer in rising supreme on wings of melodious rapture 
 
 E'en to a realm above, whence the song of the seraph is echoed. 
 
 Yet though lacking withal to keep the sweet breath in her body, 
 And in the eye of the world, as a consequence, everything paltry. 
 Generous was she by birth, and reared in the lap of indulgence ; 
 Boasting, I dare to affirm, in the teeth of her moneyed detractors, 
 A very delicate fibre, a soul encased in refinement, 
 Much too lovely for women to love, too lovely for safety. 
 
 Hard is her fate when youth, which should lean on a moth,erly 
 
 bosom. 
 Find, not seek for, advice, and be guided by loving experience, 
 Know save duty no toil, no cares but home and religion, 
 Forced is to fly to one for strength, for refuge, for counsel. 
 One to provide her with bread, with modest raiment to clothe her. 
 One to prevent false love from betraying her soul to its ruin. 
 One her battle to fight with the massing spirits of evil. 
 While that one is Herself, with Self for a guardian angel.
 
 RED MUSIC. 183 
 
 Canto I. 
 FUEL. 
 
 Days which most fateful prove are not always the darkest in 
 
 aspect. 
 Thus it fell out that the sun shone bright to leaflets responsive, 
 Windows were decked with bloom, the halcyon bloom of the 
 
 spring time ; 
 Youth was enjoying its youth, and beauty rejoicing in beauty, 
 Pleasure broadcast abroad ; while mirth o'er the presence of sorrow 
 Carelessly spread its veil — a veil of gossamer texture ; 
 Clouds dispersing afar no future existed but present, 
 When at the door of her home came furtively knocking a lover. 
 
 Proud of illustrious rank was Lord Amaranth, son of a Marquis, 
 
 Perfect in pose and form. To him a beautiful mother 
 
 Lent all her lustre of tint with lineaments feminine, faultless ; 
 
 While of the newer blood, his honours bought in the market, 
 
 Slave-driver of white slaves — a guinea for every minute. 
 
 Sure as the tick of the clock, by year, by month, and by decade. 
 
 Dropping a surfeit — his sire adorned him with gold and its graces. 
 
 Lady Astarte, his love, being passing ambitious of music, 
 Warblings of throat had desired, the borrowed note of the call- 
 bird, 
 Somewhat to cover defect, an ignorant effort to polish ; 
 Not to be learnt in a year by those engifted with genius. 
 Nor by the common-place herd can art be acquired in a lifetime ; 
 So must she counterfeit truth ; tell a lie by the aid of a mistress ; 
 Strive to impose on her peers, with which benignant intention 
 Deigned she to seek as a guide Basilissa, the orphan and artiste.
 
 184 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Though in the lady both time and tune were deficient or dormant, 
 Gushing and soft beat her heart, of sympathy keenly susceptive ; 
 Soon to her joy she found in this lofty instructress a jewel, 
 Priceless, flawless, uncut, yet withal of glistering brilliance ; 
 
 Hence her musician she courted — yes, courted with patient 
 
 endeavour, 
 Prayed her forget of rank the purely factitious distinction, 
 Vowed her great self the second, and prior asserted the other ; 
 Offered her heart for heart, and clung to her close in affection ; 
 Gave her the fruit of her lips, the tasteless kiss of a sister ; 
 Till by simplicity shamed, and wearied by constant entreaty, 
 Grace against pride prevailed : Basilissa yielded her friendship. 
 
 One morn came it to pass while the lady was struggling with nature, 
 Which though it made her grandee, had omitted to make her a 
 
 singer ; 
 Enter unasked, unobserved, to listen. Lord Amaranth : Straitway 
 Sounds to excruciate nerves overwhelmed, as in vehement volume 
 Issued there forth untune from the lips of the Lady Astarte. 
 Sudden she ceased, and a voice seraphic in metal and brilliance. 
 Clear as the nightingale's trill and warm as harps on the waters, 
 Briefly recited the strain — too brief, yet enough for entrancement. 
 
 Then felt the man in himself there's an empire more grand than 
 position. 
 
 Backed though it be by gold and the claque of vulgarian toadies. 
 
 Which was the typical maiden he knew and sighed for the 
 
 knowledge ; 
 Delicate-outlined the one, as pure mediaeval Madonna ; 
 Voice accordant with face, and both harmonious in essence, 
 Showed forth the woman of women ; while she — she was only 
 
 domestic ;
 
 RED MUSIC. 185 
 
 She who held fast his pledge on a fine-drawn tapering finger, 
 Malgre noblesse of air, seemed a work of commoner moulding. 
 Many an hour had he basked as it were on a pillow of nightshade, 
 Toying with sense and shame, and paying a guerdon for kisses ; 
 Much time too had he spent in devotion to Lady Astarte, 
 Chosen child of his sire, and dearly beloved of his mother. 
 Duty required him to yield his desires to parental affection ; 
 Interest even more. Yet for once he regretted obedience. 
 
 Scarce realised are the clouds and the snows and all things supernal 
 Down in the valley below ; till you climb the path of the mountain, 
 Breathing a rarified air, and beholding miraculous tinctures, 
 Glories of size and shape, and Alpine shadows, and cities 
 Lying like dots beneath, and lakes looking lesser than rivers ; 
 All things are new for the nonce, the past but a vision in distance. 
 Thus the first quickening of life, when, released from mere animal 
 
 bondage, 
 Rising above all else, it soars to an Holy of Holies, 
 Finding a concrete ideal ; such love bears no lower description 
 Save as the meeting of twain who for ages were seeking each other. 
 
 Long ere the last modulation had died from the lips of the 
 
 songstress. 
 That sweet dulcisonant queen, most honoured by men in the 
 
 wond'ring; 
 Amaranth loved Basilissa, and loving first learnt all that love 
 
 means — 
 Tremulous pulsing of blood, an eye in tender obeisance 
 Fixed on the picture that breathed like a Greuze in the focus of 
 
 noon-day,
 
 l86 RED MUSIC. 
 
 While his enraptured ear was absorbing an infinite sweetness. 
 Gazed he till rose a flush on the forehead of her whom he 
 
 gazed at ; 
 Gazed he till gathered a frown on the face of the Lady Astarte. 
 
 Vexed at a contrast so cruel, and alive to her feeble performance, 
 Gently the great lady chid her affianced's unwelcome intrusion. 
 Frigidly bidding him leave and permit her to finish the lesson. 
 Mesmerised as to his eye it essayed to attract BasiUssa, 
 While distrait with his tongue to the lady he murmured obedience. 
 
 Lady Astart^ espied his glance at her friend the musician, 
 And like iron to the soul swift entered jealousy — demon. 
 Not recollecting her faith, her honour, her nobler intention. 
 Losing her ladylike self in a moment of feminine weakness. 
 Uttered she cutting words, so sharp as to savour of insult, 
 Seeking a paltry revenge in crushing the artiste, her servant. 
 
 Heard Basilissa; then bowed ; then left in the meekness of silence ; 
 
 War in her heart ne'ertheless — the weaker had wounded the 
 stronger : 
 
 Fool from divergent lines to imagine a parallel lasting ! 
 
 Little she thought to be weighed with the casual stare of a 
 stranger — 
 
 Innocent quite as yet of the priceless price of the keeping. 
 
 Yea, the full whole of the man to a maiden betrothed. 
 
 With her conscience 
 Communed she deep and long, aghast at a difference teUing, 
 Minus equation of gold, that the merest misnomer is friendship ; 
 Thus they parted, and thus to her door came Lord Amaranth 
 knocking.
 
 RED MUSIC. 187 
 
 Radiant then was the mom, illuminate fierce by the sun rays, 
 Sun that beams on the bad and the good, the just and the unjust, 
 Sun that the sufferer mocks till he cries : " Would God it were 
 
 evening ! " 
 Sun that rises on shame, on murder, suicide, blood-stains, 
 Sun on the nodding hearse, on the garnished bridal coruscant, 
 Sun on the gaol, on the crank, on the very gallows ridescent. 
 Entered this lordly thing as a sun in a firmament cloudless. 
 Gilded, laughing and gay, a cynic externally genial ; 
 Paradox as to his soul — a noble ignoble to woman. 
 Beauty adoring, withal iconoclast brutal of beauty ; 
 Like to a child with a doll that loves and then rends it asunder 
 Or as a hand that robs a rose to be flung in the gutter. 
 
 Open the door, let him in, be courteous, for courtesy's costless, 
 Measure your will against his, your simple trust with his cunning, 
 Try if your heart be of stone, your pride sufficient protectress. 
 Cherish an asp in your breast ; it stings not, fond Basilissa ! 
 
 " Came he as patron of art, a brother to seek for a sister, 
 Genius being so rare, if to listen were not an intrusion ? " 
 This in soft diffident tone, belittling his lordly pretensions. 
 Yet, for an index of brain, with an eyeball of evil suggestive 
 Scarce disguised in a smile. And she, needs must, was responsive. 
 Prizing his visit ; and more her victory over Astarte. 
 
 Fascinates as with its glare the Python a shivering lambkin. 
 
 So was his game to play, cajole, and slaver his victim — 
 
 " Love " he termed her in thought, since most euphemistic is 
 
 Satan, 
 And as angel of light is glorified most in his triumphs.
 
 1 88 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Ah ! cruel heart, cruel eye, enhanced by a visage of beauty. 
 All mock-modest to cheat the girl of her soul and her reason, 
 Cheat with a kiss of pretence, a kiss of equivocal meaning ! 
 Never before had she seen a portrait so gorgeously coloured, 
 Perfect in every line, a maiden's ideal. Supremely 
 Courtly in lesser things (the trifles dearest to woman, 
 Judging a man by his clothes, in lieu of the truth of his manhood) 
 Studied this lordling to please ; what time soft sympathy simper. 
 What time in delicate vein imperceptible flatteries whisper ; 
 Much abasement of self, the most exalted enthronement, 
 Far beyond royal rank, of sweet Basilissa ; then laughing 
 Careless he hurled dispraise of his parokeet inamorata. 
 Lady Astarte, the shrill, the chos'n of his sire and his mother ; 
 Give him the marriage of souls, not the sordid mortice of bodies ! 
 Duty might make her his spouse, his life, his happiness never. 
 Thus did he woo with skill, while she all unconscious of evil 
 Toyed with the artifice laid, as a bird with the snare of a fowler. 
 Practice had taught him of old, that a maid will banish a suitor 
 Earnest, honest, and true, and above-board in mind and intention, 
 Yielding her treasury up, to an actor's cajoUery helpless. 
 
 Drank then this songstress his words, as the camel a pool of oasis ; 
 Instinct long having craved for some such nectareous flowings, 
 Vanity's thirst to assuage, or perchance to intoxicate fancy. 
 Traitress none less to art, the sacrament of her devotion, 
 Felt she as lounged at her feet this lordling minion of mammon. 
 Yea, though her dimples told tale of his subtle and prosperous 
 
 pleading, 
 While eyes grand in their tint, with a light intense in its meaning. 
 Spake what her lips uttered not, and with mightier eloquence, still 
 
 she
 
 RED MUSIC. 189 
 
 Girlish retirement displayed, for her voice and her face were at 
 
 issue. 
 Honey is sweet to the hive, but a queen-bee may not confess it ! 
 
 Somewhat discouraged he paused — by tact a repulse is precluded — 
 Versed in more facile love, by reserve of maidenhood baffled, 
 Till he detected a cheek rubescent with blushes, then uttered 
 Such a respectful adieu as a sycophant pays to an empress : 
 " Might he presume so far as to trespass upon her to-morrow? 
 " Offerings he craved to bring, a rose and milk-white stephanotis, 
 " Orchids exceeding rare, only reared by the Amaranth hotbeds — 
 " No ? Then surely by heav'n was his foolish temerity punished ! 
 " He should have sighed from afar, till o'erheard were his sonnets 
 
 in dreamland, 
 " Present with her in sweet sleep, that per luck in the dawn of a 
 
 morning 
 " She might awake to her fate, and find it forecast by his presence ! " 
 Whereto she answered his flam with the ringing numberless 
 
 laughter 
 Emerald wavelets resound on the lakelike shores of the Solent. 
 
 Thus having left his sting to fester, the venomous insect 
 Fluttered afield to vice, being somewhat of purity wearied ; 
 Life's sole elixir to him, its necessity, sensual pleasure ; 
 Left his sting as a gift ; as a mad dog leaves hydrophobia. 
 Scorpions poison of blood, or the gadfly maniacal longings. 
 
 When on the ocean of life our bark bursts away to the sunward, 
 Borne by a favouring breeze and counter to earth's revolution, 
 So that it follows the light in its course as the needle the magnet, 
 Whirlpools afar appear rocks deep in the crystalline waters
 
 IQO RED MUSIC. 
 
 Sunk, unremembered flit past, and our sails in perpetual noonday 
 Strain to the bellying wind, nor reck of a possible storm-blast, 
 Bounding expectant along to a fatuous haven of dreamland. 
 Love is the pilotless bark that bears to — it matters not whither, 
 Heav'n or Hell upon earth, remorse, or exquisite rapture ; 
 Or, to the idol self, beruddled with paint egotistic, 
 Dagon of this our age, and doomed, like Philistia's Dagon. 
 
 Thoughtless of all but one thought, insensate of aught but one 
 feeling, 
 
 Musicless save one strain, dreamless of all but one dreaming, 
 
 Phantasied, hypnotised, bound by a spell was fond Basilissa. 
 
 Memory brought back his face, his glances, his smiles, and his 
 accents — 
 
 Wrong preference for herself, yet righteous contempt for Astarte — 
 
 Charms of the snake by the charm of a song allured to her bosom. 
 
 Oft rehearsed was the scene, and again and again till the moon- 
 light 
 
 Fifty times told his tale in caprice, nocturne, and sonata ; 
 
 Then in the dreams of the night revers'd with the strangest 
 additions ; 
 
 Yet again in the grey as Aurora melts into golden ; 
 
 Last in the ring of a bell — a tap — and Lord Amaranth entered. 
 
 Shattered at once in full joy was reserve : and, oh for the pity ! — 
 Clasping of hands, and weaving of arms, and tangle of chestnut 
 Curls in her tresses of silk entwin'd with a cincture of scarlet ; 
 Soft as susurrant rills flowed along their harmonised love-notes. 
 Eye shone reflected in eye, till her head fell prone on his shoulder. 
 All in the purest of trust. She believed in the honour of manhood, 
 Little aware of man, and he so an accomplished actor.
 
 RED MUSIC. igi 
 
 Certes his satiate soul at the warmth of chastity marvelled ; 
 While as a ripening spring she rejoiced in the promise of summer, 
 Sparing not one little thought for the heart-sore of Lady Astarte, 
 Yesterday friend of friends, who writhed in the pain of desertion, 
 Love being cruel and blind to clouds on the distant horizon. 
 
 As on a softer sand the springtide shaping its wavelets 
 Fashions a mimic storm, the trough, and the sweep, and the crest- 
 foam, 
 So ere the tide receded, of passion the imprints procellous 
 Scored in billows a soul abandoned to fateful illusion. 
 Day after day for long hours flowed and ebbed that furious 
 
 spring-tide, 
 Leaving a higher mark each time of its lashing the sea-shore : 
 Week after week with his flowers, the only gifts she permitted, 
 Fragrant as sweet pet-words, as his smiles and gentle caresses. 
 Watching with hungered eye the maturing of fruit that's forbidden, 
 Amaranth haunted her side with intent to encompass her ruin. 
 
 One morn he came not, and she — she was lacrymal, agonised, 
 
 angry, 
 One morn he came not, for he had a scene with his father, the 
 
 Marquis. 
 
 Lady Astarte, the wronged, for the agony of dereliction 
 Followed her swain per a spy to the home where dwelt Basilissa. 
 Fact revealed to her facts ; and in ire at falsehood of friendship 
 Cursed she the beauty that lured her innocent lord from affiance. 
 Mortified next, yet in terror of loss, she appealed to the Marquis ; 
 Urged him to rescue his boy from the claws of a wily intriguante, 
 Hoping thereby to regain the recreant, crushing her rival.
 
 192 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Threatened with loss of lands, of prospects, of honour, of all things. 
 Wearied maybe of a game with more than impregnable virtue, 
 Craven in heart, and untrue, the prodigal retrogressed homeward, 
 Vowed himself sick of the husks that suffice for the swine of 
 
 suburbia. 
 Came to himself, so to say, to his greedier mammonite base-self, 
 Feasted on fatted calf, and bowed in the humblest submission, 
 Grovelled before his betrothed, most graciously pleased to be 
 
 lenient. 
 Quite surrendered his all, his love, his life to convention ; 
 Yea, as in dastardly dread of some indefinite evil. 
 Cast forth the pearl from his breast, and incontinent ground it to 
 
 powder. 
 
 " He might be ill," Basilissa opined, but would not enquire — 
 
 She to betray her own, her darling own, by impatience ? 
 
 Perish the thought ! She could guage the bathos of pride that 
 
 regarded 
 Puff-balls of yesterday's date, enhancing a coronet's blazon. 
 Far above art, or truth, or the sovereign graces of beauty. 
 " Amaranth loved. He would come. How strange that he wrote 
 
 not a letter ! " 
 
 Neither missive nor sound. She had passed from his life as a 
 
 vapour. 
 Heartless inept to toy with a soul as a child with a bauble ! 
 
 Hope against hope until all a noble nature grew sickened, 
 Hope against hope till blind love was slowly recovering its vision, 
 Hope against hope till to hell was her poor pretty paradise changed ! 
 One whole month natheless did she strive to conquer conviction ;
 
 RED MUSIC. 193 
 
 One whole month sufficed as a test-time to prove him ; but after 
 Dim in the twilight she oped a meandering vein in her bosom ; 
 Free flowing, straight from the heart, incarnadine welled forth the 
 
 ichor. 
 Staining a bodice of white and flesh-texture transparently whiter. 
 Next, by a full moon's glow, intermingling tears with the carmine, 
 Words, burning words from the soul, the agonised soul by his 
 
 wronging. 
 Covered a music sheet, writ line by line in the ruby 
 Character of her blood. She charged him his verdict to utter, 
 Once and for all, for ever and aye ! for now and for certain ; 
 Sharp, decisive and clear as the judge on a prisoner's carcase : 
 
 Either to make her his bride, and lead her to pleasures Elysian, 
 Greenness of widening sward ; streams cooling a solstice eternal ; 
 Trees of perpetual shade, with flowrets gay and unfading, 
 Lay of the linnet and thrush, of the nightingale— nature orchestral; 
 Goblets of luscious wine, and the magic fantastical colour 
 All empurpling in tint the distant scene and the foreground ; 
 Mystical pulsing of love, that trance of exquisite feeling 
 Centuries spending in hours, a myriad lives in a lifetime — 
 That, yes, that or to die — a speedier sleeping, ensured by 
 Lethe, the cup of the lost, the soothing draught of the soul-sore, 
 Lethe whose baptism laves despair in the sweetest oblivion ! 
 Farewell to art with a sigh — art true, art constant and faithful. 
 Art never fades nor fails : she sings as of old to her mystics, 
 Sings with a tongue unknown to a world of Philistine scoffers. 
 Farewell to love the false ; from a cage as the wild dove escaping, 
 Surpliced in wings flies free, her nest to discover forsaken ; 
 Lost to her mate, her all, she croons one mournful cadenza,
 
 194 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Then lies her down to sleep the death of unsatisfied longing. 
 Thus in a mood over-wrought, but with large-writ strength of 
 
 intention, 
 Vowed by her blood to die, by her blood vowed mad Basilissa. 
 
 Stunned stood the sensual Lord, at the sight of his handiwork 
 
 trembling. 
 Dreading delirious act from the ghastly hue of her letter, 
 Scrawled in a rubric type, but not the red of the printer ; 
 While as he bent to kiss the blood of an idol forsaken. 
 Streamed through the dirt of his breast a current of pitiful feeling. 
 Action, not word was required — too late a day, or an hour ! 
 Curs'd be a paralysed will— her door close watched by suspicion ! 
 Spies ranged around his path — he was chained by the fastest of 
 
 fetters ! 
 Visit her ? Ah, what else could control the suicide's mania ! 
 Yet seemed the risk too large. By a lie he might re-assure her — 
 Time being healer of all, she would live down the virus of passion — 
 Doubtless his cue was to lie ? and the man was no novice in lying. 
 Falsehood his mother's milk, cajolery taught from his cradle ; 
 So by a trusty hand this hypocrisy varnished he sent her : 
 
 " My Basilissa, my own, thou choice of a heartfelt devotion. 
 Doubt me not — do not despair — my love is the same now as ever, 
 Deeper in absence, 'tis true. Would to Heav'n t'were made vivid 
 
 by presence, 
 Since I am pining for love, a compulsory prisoner from thee ! 
 Yet in this world we must be of the world, though less worldly 
 
 than worldlike ; 
 I may not yield my estate, nor the place I hold in the nation — 
 Over bespattered with mud of disdain, to my equals an eyesore,
 
 RED MUSIC. 195 
 
 Thus to confront me, I swear, is the farthest thought from your 
 
 forehead ; 
 Nor dare I, even by deed of right, inherit the curse of 
 One, who his father's grey hairs to the grave brings downward in 
 
 sorrow. 
 Bigoted, stern is the Marquis— and I ? — I am thralled to obedience ! 
 Yet am I pining for love, a compulsory prisoner from thee. 
 You would be Amaranth's bride, would challenge the world as his 
 
 partner ? 
 Ah, could it be so now, to-day, at once, and for ever ! 
 Yet thus a bar would you raise 'twixt a son and long-suffering 
 
 parents ; 
 Yea, and as interloper o'erhear the whisper of women 
 Sibilant in their smile of mocking amenity ; these are 
 Some of the pitfalls that lie in the way of immediate union. 
 Amaranth puissant was born, and you^you are puissant by genius. 
 Yours the immortal blood ; his opulent, titled ; believe me. 
 Greater to-day with mankind than Raphael, Shakespeare, Beethoven ; 
 Since to the Philistines crass you seem naught but a guinealess 
 
 teacher ; 
 Much as a menial instructs a child how to eat like a Christian, 
 So do you train in scales, in minims, in crotchets and quavers ; 
 Simply a framer of sound — so far are our fortunes unequal. 
 
 All that is nothing to me, as a man, for in lady's demeanour, 
 Aye, and in lofty brow, in starlike presage of future. 
 Beauty, nature, and mind, with all the favour of fancy, 
 Surely supreme you reign, with for crown a halo of glory ? 
 Still in this cold, mundane, inferior, practical fact-life 
 Gold is — gold ! and rank is — rank ! and talent a bubble,
 
 196 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Destined to soar to the sky, or else, like the quicksilver rolling, 
 Mayhap adhere ; mayhap be scattered to numberless atoms. 
 
 Therefore say I to my love, if my love would mate with her lov'd 
 
 one. 
 Not being born of luck, of mammon, coronet, vapour, 
 Only of Art, of quick brain, of loveliness, higher endeavour. 
 Bear as I bear for her sake, and forbear as I am forbearing. 
 Trust and be brave in hope, for wise is the maxim that teaches : 
 All things for such as can wait are possible — even fruition." 
 
 A letter of lies may deceive, but not with superbity tainted. 
 Soon was she laid on her bed unconscious, delirious, raving, 
 " Amaranth ! " still her cry, " My love, have I lost thee for ever ? " 
 " Amaranth ! " louder still, while the opposite houses rebounded, 
 " Amaranth ! " over again in double-tongued echo of madness.
 
 RED MUSIC. 197 
 
 Canto II. 
 
 FLAME. 
 
 Visions appear in the dark midst the silent moments of slumber 
 Not to prophets alone, but as scenes of a dual existence, 
 Mirage of common events, and as a mirage inverted ; 
 Reflex may be of a brain distort, yet plain to the sleeper, 
 Since in their dreams alone the blind have the power of seeing. 
 Tell me not dreams of the night are. the merest kaleidoscope 
 
 shifting — 
 Transposition of lines, and metrical forms of mosaic. 
 Prone into space we fall, or in shameful nudity slinking 
 Flee from the gaze of mankind, as from God in the thickets of Eden ; 
 Now upon billows tossed with a sense of a sough and a sinking ; 
 Now horror-stricken by blood or by jabbering features of idiots ; 
 Now free among the dead we pass through the portals of Hades, 
 Hand in hand with the Shades, or cheek by jowl with the corpses. 
 Wise was the Poet who sang, that a dream is a God-given portent, 
 Since through the veil of sleep we enter a life that is other, 
 Hidden behind the day, as planets at noontide coruscant. 
 
 Dreamed a fevered dream, a dream of sight and of touching, 
 Outlined sharply as edges of clouds in essence electric. 
 Painful, intense, inescapable, staring all ways like a slain face, 
 Parched Basilissa of tongue, in hectic hue of complexion. 
 Tossed on a tempest of fire with blood like a tropical river ; 
 Dreamed as one who beholds, and yet forms part of the picture. 
 
 A red-gay garden of flowers, all crowded with fairest of girlhood ; 
 Hot beat the sun overhead on a dead sward pulverine, thirsty ; 
 Fiery throughout shone the bloom, a gaudy crimson and scarlet ;
 
 198 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Not a leaf on the trees but of copper, no greenery grateful ; 
 No, nor a speck of blue, nor of grey to neutralise fever. 
 Every cheek flushed deep, the eyes were bloodshot, while anger 
 Brow-pervaded each one, as they cried in their anguish for water. 
 Prisoners these of thirst, soft-clad in apparel resplendent 
 Chiefly of silks and lace with a wealth of orient jewels. 
 Circling the garden a wall upreared as the keep of a castle ; 
 None might its bastion surmount, to climb was to fall and to 
 perish ; 
 
 Brick-dust in hue it glared, the dominant tone of the picture. 
 
 Knew Basilissa anon, perchance per the instinct of dreamland, 
 This was the harem of one, who, wearied of feminine empire, 
 Left these discarded loves in haste to flee from their fervour, 
 Fastened by iron bars in an arid, midsummerly pleasaunce. 
 Somehow she was, yet was not, confined with them in their durance. 
 Actor at once and spectator, yet thus impelled unto action — 
 Quicker than playwright's art oftimes dream-scenery changes. 
 Not one recognised her, nor felt she at home with the women, 
 Ignorant quite of their names, their habits, ideas, aspirations. 
 
 One little door she espied fast-locked against hope for the captives : 
 Eager they hitherwards moved — a solid impervious portal. 
 Weighted by oaken beams, clamped across with fesses of iron, 
 Guarding the fretful fair from the love of the lover who bought 
 
 them. 
 First, a Circassian tall, sapphire-eyed, of magnifical whiteness, 
 Baring a bosom opal, with locks more crocus than amber, 
 Pouting an osculant lip, cornelian, the bow-shape of Cupid, 
 Wrenched at the door till the force burst a nerve in her fore-arm 
 
 of marble, 
 Moving the grace from her brow, but not the hinge in its socket.
 
 RED MUSIC. 199 
 
 Then a Being of night, warm, luscious, passionate, lusty, ' 
 Supple and springy in shape, irate from the drought and the sun's 
 
 heat. 
 Fevered in temples, and fierce as bereft of her mate is the viper, 
 Tried, and yet tried it again, till she fainting fell from exhaustion. 
 All in their turn essayed, some peevish, some rampant, while ever 
 Hotter the sun's rays burnt, inflaming the throat and the palate, 
 Mocking their gorgeous robes, their gewgaws, and glories of 
 
 splendour. 
 Till, like wild things in a cage, they grouped as for safety together. 
 
 Then Basilissa knew well, that beyond emprise was the exit, 
 Nor would she double her thirst by toil of a fruitless endeavour, 
 Yet did she fumble the door, and wondered much for the vision. 
 What might be on the reverse ? A touch, and an orrery opened, 
 Portcullis-shaped, with bars across and across for protection ; 
 Close she applied her eye to its diamond eyeholes intently. 
 Curious alike, and in hope of discovering relief for the captives. 
 Why does her heart beat hard, as the surging strokes of a piston, 
 Why all her bosom heave as the breast of tempestuous ocean. 
 What makes her breath stop short, uncertain as if of returning ? 
 'Tis for another scene she views as an earnest observer. 
 One containing an unit, so small, yet to her universal ! 
 
 Straining of sight is troublous, and deep agitation is weary, 
 
 Yet moves she not from the door, nor her gaze from the orrery's 
 
 eyeholes ; 
 For on the extern side by the coolest fountain of water. 
 Rippling, showering, sweet as it were to tantalise fever, 
 All delicious to taste, to behold in its murmur of plashing. 
 Amaranth sat as one in despair, hypochondria's victim.
 
 200 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Mazed in expression, his eye as the eye of a lost epileptic. 
 Nigh him Astarte, the proud, who held his pledge on her finger — 
 Bane, as she deemed, of his life, her own most detestable rival — 
 Toying with him unwilling, and taking in lieu of receiving; 
 Paying herself in embrace, in kissing, fondling, caressing, 
 Much as the mad of dead love beslobbers an idolised statue, 
 Hugging marmoreal ice, as though 'twere the very departed ; 
 Thus wooed she Amaranth chill, far more irresponsive than marble. 
 
 Gazed Basilissa and then overjoyed at a spectacle telling 
 Certes the truth of his heart, cried aloud to make surety the surer ; 
 Cried in the pain of joy ; the waterfall-laughter that mimics 
 Anguish in melting eyes, as a shower of June in the sunshine. 
 
 Flashed in response the dull orb, like dawn on the snow of the 
 
 mountains, 
 Heaven seemed returned to his brow, a smile divine to his 
 
 face, as 
 Hastily tracking a voice still dear he quitted Astarte, 
 Rushed to the door and breathed through its orrery whispers of 
 
 music, 
 Breathed till her sense seemed steeped in a trance of miraculous 
 
 sweetness. 
 
 " How, dearest, how to escape, for ever to have you, to hold you ! " 
 Uttered she wildly and eager, for precious seemed every second, 
 Doubly precious to her as rest for a tremulous bosom ; 
 " Save these who perish of thirst, save one who is dying of loving ! 
 Little is drinking to me, my draught being other ; your accents 
 Sensibly bear to my sense a springing fountain of gladness. 
 Sweetheart," exclaimed she again, " For love's sake unfasten this 
 portal ! "
 
 RED MUSIC. 20 1 
 
 Sadly his eye gloomed o'er ; it spake with the voice of a volume, 
 While in oracular words her wild supplication he answered : 
 " Bars between heaven and earth, irrefragable hinges of iron. 
 Bolts colossal in mould, fraught by sternest social invention, 
 One may not move, nor two ; the only lever is number. 
 Greatest of great being she who makes of a sisterhood sisters. 
 ' Combination is strength,' and unity deifies units, 
 Mostly the motive power — use these thirsty gauds as your items ; 
 Each in herself is weak, Circassian, Moorish, Albanian, 
 Yet has the total a force to which this door is a feather !" 
 
 Then with a sigh as of pain he slowly returned to Astarte, 
 
 Back to the lady whose love was a fret on the nerve of his nature, 
 
 Even as rain wears away a stone by continual dripping. 
 
 Swift to the circle of girls bemoaning sadly their fortune, 
 Fainting for heat yet firm returned Basilissa, the dreamer ; 
 Fire from her ardent lips burst forth in eloquent language, 
 Fire that spread to a blaze, for the fuel was ready for burning. 
 " Lead Basilissa," they cried, " Lead on, great queen, we will 
 
 follow ! " 
 Soon from the bosom of snow torn off was the scarf and the 
 
 boddice, 
 Drapery wrenched from the limbs, and cincture bright from the 
 
 waistband. 
 Fillet from off the hair with delicate Indian linen, 
 Interwoven together in shreds, tight-handled, firm-twisted, 
 Framing a rope of such sort as indeed to sight was surprising ; 
 Millecouleur end to end ; gilt, argent, azure, and ruby, 
 Emerald, amethyst, rose, opal, violet, purple, and orange — 
 Patchy, incongruous, quaint, inconceivable, sequence of colour.
 
 202 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Nor were the girls unlike a group of bathers undressing ; 
 Finery-stripped, and thus enabled to muscular-action ; 
 Clad but in loosened white, and lovelier far for its license ; 
 Zoneless, lissome in grace, and supple in serpentine motion, 
 More in accordance with truth than the uglier dictates of fashion ; 
 Freedom, the birthright of all, lends the free a virtue celestial. 
 
 Fast to the adamant door, as fate frowning down on its captives, 
 Through the handle of steel, affixed to the framework by rivets, 
 Part of the portal itself, they attached the cable entwisted ; 
 Next side by side at the rope arranged they take up their station, 
 Each one a link in the chain, the well wrought chain of deliverance, 
 She, Basilissa, their queen, disposing obedient subjects, 
 Loud exhorting and firm, to be ready, steady, united ! 
 Last erect at their head she stood, majestic in gesture ; 
 Feeling her will rule theirs, as a pilot the vessel of burden : 
 Proud in her paramount force — a pause — then she shrilled forth 
 
 the signal — 
 Crash fell the door to earth, and — crash ! — her spirit awakened. 
 
 Feverish floods abated. She read as a Sybil the vision, 
 Prophetic as to its lines, with a key to interpret the meaning. 
 Thought proved the parent of deed, and deed the precursor of 
 darkness.
 
 RED MUSIC. 203 
 
 Canto III. 
 
 EMBER. 
 
 Milk-white, gloried with rose, as a being just fresh from the angels. 
 Star-struck in glister of eye Basilissa awoke from her stupor. 
 Day may revivify day, when stormlight has melted in azure. 
 Gold lend sunshine to gold as it issueth forth from the furnace. 
 But when the flower of love lies bleeding, what magic can save it? 
 Soon as mists 'gan disperse and the world drifted back with its 
 
 heart-ache, 
 Memory lent her aid, that artist original pictures 
 Copying vividly true, retouched by the brush of reflection ; 
 All the dream-vision repassed — the garden of feverish flowers, 
 Lips ardescent with drought, and vanity sick of its surfeit, 
 Prisoners of unrest, like to love-birds in separate cages. 
 Is there, she asked, no thirst, no pain of indefinite craving. 
 What time rags are as naught, and the glitter of gold is forgotten — 
 One little drop far more from the hidden fountain of Eros, 
 More than all precious stones and the purple dyes of Arabia — 
 What time the idol has fall'n from her niche, a mockery shattered; 
 What time the vessel of manna has changed to a platter of ashes ? 
 
 Work in the welkin of hope, hard work, comes as play to the 
 
 worker, 
 Merry as sweet spring flowers. In content^Basilissa had laboured 
 Music-entranced, her ear alive with melodious pulsings 
 Free from an upper sphere ; then love a harmony added. 
 Deep-toned, of warmer chrome, yet sensibly merging in discord, 
 As of disponent winds when tempest darkens the distance. 
 Now from forget-me-not was her chaplet converted to nightshade ; 
 Now her noonday of hope crepuscular, chill, neutral-tinted ;
 
 204 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Yet had she work to her hand, to be worked ere the hastening 
 
 nightfall — 
 Work by the dreamlight's glare for an issue sharp-outlined as 
 
 shadow. 
 
 Not alone among girls did she writhe Lord Amaranth's plaything ; 
 Others — so intuition revealed — co-partners in anguish, 
 Derelicts, like herself, had loved ; though never was unit 
 Welded as she in soul with the soul that had wrenched himself 
 
 from her. 
 There stood conviction sure. He had toyed with light o' love Lais, 
 Many a rosebud pluck'd from the gaudy garland of girlhood. 
 Many a lily defiled — mere pastime, not serious earnest — 
 Yet never once had adored, till her voice won the mastery o'er 
 
 him. 
 Granted these frail ones wronged ; she shared not their full con- 
 demnation. 
 In that they fell from good, while good had preserved her from 
 
 falling — 
 Her's the casket of truth, truth alone the key to unfasten. 
 Still, if pliant as putty, facile, unarmoured of virtue, 
 Women they were with all a woman's womanhood. Impulse 
 Bade her go seek these strays, the underlife of the city, 
 Prey for the human wolf — right perilous quest for a maiden 
 White of mind as a babe, a sweetheart surcharged with emotion, 
 Sappho in fire of love, yet pure as the mystic Theresa. 
 
 Nor was her search purblind. She had seen these spectres in 
 
 dreamland, 
 Dight in the glory of youth with its fount of opulent ichor. 
 This as Circassian opal, save for laughing lip of cornelian ;
 
 RED MUSIC. 205 
 
 This of the flashing eye, flushing cheek — a statue in outUne ; 
 Others of varying type ; their faces, form and expression. 
 As of apocalypse reappeared more vivid than eyesight ; 
 Amaranth's holocaust, and she festooned for the altar. 
 
 Was it by rule of chance, telepathy, force of volition — 
 
 Count it whichever you will ? — she faced in a throng unexpected 
 
 Her of the crocus-locks, whose lip, no longer cornelian. 
 
 Smiled in an effort supreme to conceal the pressure of conscience ; 
 
 Whom, when her gaze entranced, she greeted with sisterly whisper, 
 
 Like to a spirit familiar ; then stronger will over-ruling. 
 
 Drew the soft stranger apart, and seeking confidence gained it. 
 
 Aye, till a pent up flood burst its bonds in volume of horror : 
 
 " Oh, my mother, my mother, would God I were with thee, 
 
 dear mother, 
 " Under the churchyard grass ! We were poor, and I feather- 
 headed, 
 " Yet to her faithful and fond — no curse, if no benediction, 
 " Being a simple child, until Amaranth came with his lying. 
 "Grand is he, beautiful, false. Who was I to withstand his 
 
 caresses ? 
 " Then for the wages of sin, he dared at the moment of parting, 
 " Fhng me his paltry purse ! It broke the heart of my dear one. 
 "Yea, if I lacked not the nerve, would I follow her over the 
 
 river, 
 " Life for me being waste, a shame, a reproach, and a hissing ! " 
 
 Then Basilissa made answer — " Revenge as a luxury glutteth 
 Sensitive natures. Would'st shame to his hurt the soul that 
 betrayed thee ? "
 
 2 06 RED MUSIC. 
 
 " Shame him, not hurt ! " she sobbed, " a bitter with sweetness 
 
 commingUng. 
 " What profit in his blood ? Will his blood bring back my dead 
 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Shame him thou shalt ! Thereby will revenge be hallowed in 
 
 issue, 
 " Shame being stronger than death." Thus spake Basilissa, for 
 
 earnest 
 Sealing her pact with a kiss. Henceforward much as a vassal 
 Followed this weariful child the finger that pointed her onward. 
 
 Further the quest recommenced, and, perchance telepathy guiding, 
 This of the warmer tint was traced to a lair of perdition, 
 Herded with trulls of the streets, unsexed, implacable, brutish, 
 Less of the frail and the weak than in shrill a very virago. 
 " Behold dear womanhood dead ! His lust hath infected my nature. 
 Leaving it all forelost. If a God there reigneth above us. 
 Surely a Tophet of fire must be for Lord Amaranth destined, 
 Seventimes the heat of the hell that consumeth the souls of his 
 
 victims ? 
 Curses come home. I forbear to curse. I am waiting for judg- 
 ment." 
 
 '* Waiting is winning ! " she said. " There is one, as the moth at 
 
 candle, 
 " Fascinate by a flame that spares not coronets. Listen ! 
 " Judgment tarrieth not. Yea, this voice of mine shall ensue it !" 
 Whereto a pressure of palm, the sympathy subtle of Satan — 
 Sympathy sweet as the dew to a lily besmirched by defilement.
 
 RED MUSIC. 207 
 
 Next of the tawdrier type, a butterfly petulant, painted. 
 
 Stable as oil, and for ragman's lures a saleable chattel, 
 
 None the' less one of the dream, though of Amaranth's paramour's 
 
 lightest. 
 " Love him," she tittered, " Love him ? There was one I loved 
 
 and he loved me. 
 " Oh that the coil of life would shift back ! Hear his accents of 
 
 iron : 
 Fool, to dream that a Man would descend to Lord AmarantKs 
 
 leavings ! " 
 " Thus did he silence my pleading, and who shall deem him 
 
 unrighteous ? 
 " Not the profane one who sold to a devil her Holy of Holies ; 
 " Not the poor purblind bat who bartered her soul for fine 
 
 feathers ! 
 "Why would you kiss my lips — you a Vestal? You whisper a 
 
 reason. 
 " Good. I will do your behest. In the dust lay Lord Amaranth's 
 
 honour ! " 
 
 Thus fared her march in the mud, until more of the spectres 
 
 previsioned 
 Clustered around their queen, lost hearts with their tales of illusion 
 Firing ecstatic nerves. But for a loftier temper 
 Her's had been theirs — their sin, their downfall, their degradation. 
 Yet were they strong in a love stone-dead ; whereas for ideal, 
 Fatal as fangs of a snake, pursuivant with relentless insistance, 
 Her, awake or asleep, the presence of Amaranth haunted, 
 Dazing a weariful eye, to the ear as wind-whisper subconscious, 
 Clear in the light, undertoned in the song, full felt in the darkness, 
 Omnipresent, alas, in all save magic of presence !
 
 2o8 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Amaranth dwelt in the wind yet read not the sound of its rustling, 
 His being the zephyr that favours the great; nor recked of a 
 
 tempest 
 Gathering far remote from the bounds of the blessed possessors. 
 Cartes, the thought of her face in sweet propinquity, thrilling 
 Every fibre within, as a harp woos the ear uninvited, 
 Held the stage of his mind in the whiter hours of night watches. 
 Then would he chide weak will for display of exuberant fondness ; 
 " Tush ! Let it pass," he professed, " a buried hallucinate folly ! 
 " Time being healer of wounds must cicatrize her's to their 
 
 healing. 
 " 'Twas but a silly affair, without e'en the merit of evil — 
 " Innocent babes at play at a game unworthy the candle, 
 " She so proper, and he befooled by a voice and a visage ! 
 " Love is the bauble of boys — a man seeks solid advantage. 
 " Love for a chit too a charm — a woman measures her chances. 
 " Well that no harm could accrue, the pole lying far from the 
 
 tropics ! " 
 
 Poor little gilded mask ! Than such what confidence blinder ? 
 Little he reck'd that the ghosts of his vice from their charnel-house 
 
 rising 
 Hastened to cover his glory with shame ! The wretch marching 
 
 forward 
 Joyous in sin wots not how Nemesis follows behind him, 
 Be it with footfall slow. But the hare is outrun by the tortoise !
 
 RED MUSIC. 209 
 
 Murmurings much wheresoe'er the mammoths of mammon fore- 
 gather, 
 Tongues by the myriad as clocks, each ticking a different motion, 
 None the less all to one rhythm, a topic so trite and convincing 
 Chattered and clattered from mouth unto mouth, toss'd hither 
 
 and thither, 
 Still in one orbit. It told of a social firmament shaken 
 Ev'n to its base with rapture supreme, for that Royalty, blessing 
 In being blessed, would deign to grace with its paramount presence 
 Nuptials unparalleled — an arranged, yet mutual, love-match — 
 Quite an equation of hearts, blood blue with blood new, and their 
 
 blazon : 
 Lady Astarte's supporters macaws, langued, hauriant, vocant, 
 His nude Naiades proper, with motto, virtute securns — 
 A psychologic event, in effect a century's landmark ! 
 
 Turn from the region of sham, where wealth stands impeccable, 
 
 be it 
 Sin needs a coloured veil, just for form, to secure condonation ; 
 Turn from this acted lie to the home of an excellent whiteness, 
 Humble, hence nearer heaven, a cell yet gloried by music, 
 Holiest of all arts — each sequence of concords prophetic ; 
 Themes in multisonant voice with harmonies rolling beneath them 
 Telling a variant tale to millions on millions attentive : 
 Joy ; grief ; utter despair ; the blinder forces of nature ; 
 All the life-element, a mystery none can unravel. 
 Pictured in temper of tone, but with grander force than the 
 
 painter. 
 Poet, or sculptor. Alone save for music behold Basilissa, 
 Thralled by the book of fate in a vespern heaven laid open ; 
 Bidding good bye withal. Not ever again shall those eyeballs
 
 2IO RED MUSIC. 
 
 Gaze on the glories of night, or quest their indefinite meaning. 
 Never again shall the song that e'en here wells forth from a 
 
 bosom 
 Rent by the mighty dolour firm-holding supremacy o'er her, 
 Rise and fall in embrace of sympathy. Of such entrancement 
 Worlds are not worthy. A strain translating tears into discords 
 Flings forth the essence of soul — as the agonised shrill of a quarry 
 Gripped by the hounds — yet attempers despair with a sweetness 
 
 unearthly. 
 Thus Basilissa. No flinch, no craven dread of departure, 
 Lessened her lust for death. She had lived, and her light being 
 
 darkness, 
 Wherefore to linger and laze ? Her's a fury of energy drawing 
 Whither she cared not think. Enough if it brought her an ending. 
 Poor soul, devil-possessed, and the devil a man and a lover ! 
 
 List to the pulse of her throat as its melody melted m whisper : 
 
 Evensong of the stars, their voices in harmony breathing. 
 Chorus of myriad parts, yet each part separate, perfect 1 
 
 Lamps of the holy night ! ye shine ivith an emerald lustre, 
 Every burner a world, and every world a relation. 
 
 Spell of impending stars, of life the mysterious index. 
 
 Dread your eternal gaze, as of eyes like the sand ivithout number / 
 
 Stars I ye your courses have run from age unto age ivithout 
 
 changing, 
 Far beyond count of time, beyond the last limit of thinking. 
 
 Lo ! your machinery rolls ivith an horror-i?ispiring precision ; 
 Yet am I no machine, but free as the vanishing meteor.
 
 RED MUSIC. 211 
 
 Shade of the venerate night ! Descend down-winged upon me, 
 As der her brood the dove, with for vespern benisoi slumber ! 
 
 All the eternity past bore one Basilissa, one only. 
 
 Time itself waited for me. I lived. I loved. I am leaving 1 
 
 Am I then one of a croivd, of a type a species, kingdom ? — 
 Words, weary ivords of the wise, at best but a figment of la?tguage ! 
 
 Herd me with common herds, I one remain, not another; 
 Autocentric, round whom this immafient tmiverse travels. 
 
 Stars, suns, systems, dull earth, for me ye will merge in oblivion ; 
 I being all, a?id I, for myself t/ie beginning and ending ! 
 
 Softly the notes shaded off, like to tints in the dream of a distance, 
 So that their undertone lingered awhile. Then mingling with 
 
 linen — 
 Pure like her limbs in an innocent whiteness — and sweetly 
 
 reposeful, 
 Smiling she sank in sleep, as a flower with its morrow contented 
 Slumbers in dulcet dew. But soon ere the moon had passed 
 
 onward. 
 Rose by the light of a dream a countenance dear and delicious, 
 Weaker perchance than her own, yet as 'twere a mirror's reflexion 
 Was it the mother long dead re-arisen to plead with a daughter. 
 Palms of entreaty upholding, yet still, for a dead face is voiceless 
 Marvelled much Basilissa such woe. Surpassing conception 
 Seemed it for one from the grave thus to strive for the life of the 
 
 living. 
 Knowing not motherhood's love — to her mother a daughter and 
 
 stranger.
 
 212 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Then did the vision fade, whereafter in greenery centred 
 Saw she a Shepherd of sheep, His eye more tender than summer, 
 Seeking a lamb forelost. With His crook He essayed to enfold her, 
 Yet would she flee His touch, though His voice held the mastery 
 
 o'er her, 
 As of a will perverse. In vain did He follow her footsteps, 
 Eager to save, for ahead lay a valley in blackness of darkness, 
 Like to December's night. In emotion gazed Basilissa 
 As on a scene that moved, while the lamb sped fast to destruction, 
 Deaf to the Shepherd's appeal. 
 
 A moan, as of pain, and she started, 
 Opening her eyes to the dawn, and her ear to the note of a song- 
 bird. 
 The one love that remained — a note she was wont to re-echo, 
 Phon and antiphon, trill unto trill, flute echoing fluting — 
 Truly a friend of friends ; with sympathy more than a lover 
 Free from the simple soul of a poor little mommet of feathers 
 Veiling a heart of gold ; whose matin greeting was hymnal : — 
 " Come, let us sing !" her cry in the treble tones of bird-language. 
 Yet — and for once — Basilissa was dumb. No morn this for 
 
 singing. 
 Save in a minor key ! " Little Bird," she sobbed, " Little Birdie, 
 What, alas, will become of my sweet, my own Little Birdie, 
 When her beloved is gone ? Long days have we wooed with our 
 
 voices. 
 Each to the other true, unlike the fell falsehood of kisses. 
 Now are our love-days o'er. I am going where song is of silence. 
 No white-nights nor nocturnes of unresolvable discords. 
 No little Birdie's bright note to awaken the sleeper to morning !
 
 RED MUSIC. 213 
 
 All, all gone ! Bye thee bye !" Then tremulous opening the 
 
 cage-door, 
 Flinging the window wide, she offered the captive her freedom. 
 Quick fluttered forth the fond bird for a trice ; yet as quickly 
 
 returning. 
 Nestled and cooed by her cheek, as to say " Never spurn your 
 
 poor Birdie ! 
 Lovers forsake and flee, do not thou forsake a true lover !" 
 
 Strange that this humble thing should be to her more than a 
 
 mother, 
 Aye than the Shepherd of souls ! anon streamed forth in full 
 
 volume 
 Tears of a joy supreme, a flush of warmth to the frozen. 
 Filling the valves of her heart, a tenderness lending her bosom. 
 So that it sobbed as a babe's, suspiring with charity human. 
 Almost her reason returned — almost ! Yet ere ever the tempest 
 Yielded to chilly calm, her blinded eyelids to vision, 
 Lo ! the dear bird had fled by unwonted tremor affrighted. 
 Then did her light fade fast. Forelost the one unit that loved 
 
 her; 
 Derelict, dulled, she stood, sheer blank in a world of emotion, 
 Vacant of heart, dead-starred, moon-stricken in drear desolation. 
 
 Picture a lofty fane with columns an avenue shaping 
 Spacious from west unto east, its arches e'en to their apex 
 Fleck'd by a clerestory's light of polychrome, sunshine in rainbow, 
 Toning the inward gloom ; its altars, ablaze in the noon-day, 
 Breathing a scent of sweet savour — exotics o'erpowering incense — 
 Surely the beauty of holiness ? Else, a beauty supernal
 
 2 14 RKD MUSIC. 
 
 Such as of old might have met the gaze of the prophet of Patmos 
 Apocalyptic in dazzle of hues, in mystic entrancement. 
 Therewith the pedals' buzz, subterranean, stilling the senses, 
 Soft in its drone profound, much as though an oracle uttered ; 
 While with the footfall of pride, the conscious mien of the mighty. 
 Group after group troop in, men manly with gem-gloried women, 
 Masters of multitudes, or minions of fortune and favour. 
 Last to a loyal strain, the whole uprising to honour, 
 Lo ! the Ruler supreme, most kingly for calm of his kingright. 
 Prone in obeisance bends, of an Overlord grander the vassal ; 
 Mindful moreover of place and occasion — thereby an exemplar, 
 Most to the gobemouching tribe, who to pry, not to pray, have 
 
 intruded, 
 Craning a curious neck, like daws at a mannikin scarcecrow. 
 
 Now to the stage move forth the actors principal ; firstly. 
 Amaranth, lord of men, to the crowd a cynosure courtly. 
 Beauteous withal for the eye of womanhood watching intently — 
 These a perfection of line survey as artists ; yet others 
 Jealously gird at the bride as being unworthy such graces ; 
 Under their lips the poison of asps — in the pomp of possession 
 Slowly the lady incedes, but with less than the step of a goddess, 
 Served by attendant maids, fresh, bountiful, soft as their spring- 
 time — 
 Slips of the ancient blood in superb subservience to shekels. 
 
 Silence aspace, while in order arrange their pose for the drama, 
 Each of a richly-robed throng, priests chasubled, thurifer, servers. 
 Chief, mitre-mounted, with cope for caparison, towers a prelate. 
 Like to some tall pompone of a Japanese garden the premier ; 
 Facing him, Amaranth man ; the Lady Astarte, plain woman —
 
 RED MUSIC. 215 
 
 No respecter of persons the Church — fraterrimi omnes ! — 
 Next in a jubilant burst the tale of an innocent Eden, 
 Oftentimes told, is rehearsed by voices true-toned and harmonic, 
 While as a mammoth of sound magniloquent thunders the organ. 
 
 What, ere the cadences cease in a dimly perceptible echo. 
 
 What makes the double-aisled crowd, for the nonce forgetful of 
 
 breeding. 
 
 Gape with astonied demeanour, low-whispering as at a portent ? 
 
 Why this rude rustle of raiment, this turning of eyes from the 
 altar ? 
 
 So have I seen in a summer sky, blue, halcyon, fleckless. 
 
 Sudden from over the hill arise a cloud like a man's hand, 
 
 Much foreshortened in form, yet stealthily shrouding the landscape. 
 
 Whereby mid-morn turns dull. Like such cloud-shadow advancing, 
 
 Lo ! from the western porch a second bridal procession ! 
 
 First, by herself, erect, the Bride wreathed in blossoms — not orange. 
 
 Rather of passion-flowers interlacing hellebore — stately, 
 
 Robed in the simplest of white, loose-folded as classical stola. 
 
 Bearing a phial of death like a priest the paten and chalice ; 
 
 Eyes, as twin lustres of night radiating in luminant glister, 
 
 Heavenward upturned, on her lips the smile of a babe in its 
 
 slumber. 
 
 Hushed in a trice as with awe the breath of the multitude. Beauty 
 
 Forces a reverence meet — this a spectre seraphic, in presence 
 
 Bright as beatified saint, for an emblem her mystical raiment. 
 
 Suivante, all sable-clad, sable-veiled, a bevy of bridesmaids, 
 Each with her posy of nightshade, two and two, a train of ill- 
 omen, 
 Drifted along the aisle as starlings the trail of their leader.
 
 2l6 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Soon, at the altar steps, their veils they upraised in derision, 
 Pointing a finger of scorn at Lord Amaranth, chlorid with horror, 
 As in the open court a felon by conscience convicted. 
 Lovely these toys had been, chiefly she of the crocus-locks, gem- 
 eyed, 
 Yet had their glory gone past, like the flower of the field, that has 
 
 withered 
 Under a burning sun, lies rank in the grey of October. 
 
 Next trumpet-throated a priest : " If cause or impediment lawful 
 Any allege, let them now speak forth, or for ever be silent ! " 
 
 Ringing his challenge resounds. A pause. Then God-like in 
 
 glory 
 Gently responded a voice as music its fragrance distilling : 
 " I, Basilissa, do speak. This man is mine own." 
 
 Thus confronted, 
 '* By what law ? " charged the priest, his tone as the crashing of 
 
 cymbals. 
 
 " Mine by the law of love ! " Then modestly facing the people : 
 " Lord King, Lord Bishop, give ear, yea ! here I profess unto all 
 
 men. 
 For an eternal truth, that made in heaven is marriage 
 Only where hearts join whole ; if else, be the copula earthly, 
 One giving honest love, the other this guerdon withholding, 
 Then is the offspring accurst, and lives disunited in union — 
 Such being the burden of souls who lie unto God at His altar. 
 Lovers alone by love can consecrate that what is carnal, 
 Passion's atonement ; thereby ennobling in essence their issue ; 
 Even the poor love-child, be it base-born, by virtue of birthright
 
 RED MUSIC. 217 
 
 Somewise surpasseth the heir, be he product of lust or of half-love, 
 Lust, not love being sin — a most unorthodox doctrine, 
 Crushing hypocrisies and the cant of cruel convention ! 
 Guiltless of evil intent, misled by the glamour of grandeur. 
 Here have you met this day to abet in a fatal undoing. 
 For this poor lady I plead, once my friend, now a holocaust 
 
 offered, 
 Life, and body, and soul. She loves with the pure love of woman. 
 One who esteems her as spoil. Let these, his victims, bear witness — 
 Played with and cast aside — in their broken hearts as a mirror 
 Presage the fate of his bride ! One he loves as himself, and one 
 
 only. 
 Nor in the ages to come can he give his heart to another, 
 Having no heart to give. Thereof the owner before you 
 Stands disguised as a bride. Were he true to noblesse that is 
 
 noble, 
 Faithful at least as a dog, an Amaranth lessened of lordship, 
 Therefore enfranchised of manhood, and strong for a newer 
 
 creation. 
 Then would his sun never set, nor my noon draw nigh unto 
 
 darkness ! " 
 
 " Cease ! " interrupted the priest. But she with the glister 01 
 
 lovelight : 
 " Atnaranth, is it too late ? " 
 
 Still silence, the while she repeated, 
 Much as the croon of a dove, her plaint of melody falling 
 Soft on the straining ear of a multitude hushed to emotion : 
 " Amaraut/i, is it too late ? "
 
 2l8 RED MUSIC. 
 
 Brought to bay as a wolf by the sleuth hounds, 
 Conscience-convict, withal by shame unto mania frenzied, 
 Brutal with blazing eye, dead love converted to hatred, 
 " Mad woman, hence, begone ! " he yelled in the discord of 
 
 torment, 
 Raising a menacing hand. 
 
 Whereunto Basilissa made answer. 
 Moving apart and thereby overshadowing Lady Astarte, 
 " My Lord has bidden me go ! I obey." 
 
 High lifting the phial. 
 Like as a priest the chalice with reverence sublime in its meaning. 
 Silent she touched her tongue. 
 
 At once with a clangor unearthly 
 Tolled forth the sacring bell as it wont at the Host's elevation. 
 
 'C) 
 
 Silent again she raised the death-draught to her lips, and the 
 
 clangor 
 Brazen appalled the ear. 
 
 Yet a third time in agony mortal, 
 Gazing her last in reproach, as it were on the visage of Judas, 
 Yet with victorious smile, she drained to the dregs of her chalice ; 
 Then to the third deep toll fell prone, as a tree falls, between 
 them.
 
 MIRAGE.
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 Mad ! Am I mad, my lieges, that your cords 
 Should rive and furrow this poor bruised reed ? 
 
 Aye mad ! Yet shall ye hear, yea ye, my lords, 
 A gospel grander than your cruel creed. 
 
 Bind fast, lest I escape— you cannot bind 
 
 The soaring pinions of a madman's mind ! 
 
 A birthday forms one boundary of our span ; 
 
 The future boundary's boundless, so ye say ; 
 Eternal is the destiny of man. 
 
 Though his beginning was but yesterday ; 
 The links of Hfe, forsooth, e'en death mayn't sever. 
 And yet, time was when life itself was never ! 
 
 Sirs, I am mad, and may not comprehend 
 This utter paradox of being's thread ; 
 
 This tangled warp and woof with but one end — 
 That end our birth. The endless are the dead ? 
 
 Such, such is reason ; such the light of day ; 
 
 My thoughts sheer fantasy, the wild moonray ! 
 
 Amen. An so it be. Yet deign to roam 
 To an existence earlier than the womb. 
 
 Leave that your first and sweetest earthly home. 
 As one that riseth glorious from the tomb. 
 
 Flee the false flesh. Above the eagle soar ; 
 
 Forget to feel, and Be again once more !
 
 222 MIRAGE. 
 
 A hundred years ago I lived a prince. 
 
 I lived. Yes, I. This very mystic I ; 
 Though metamorphosed miserably, since 
 
 I lost the magic of my majesty. 
 Not I alone lived then but also you — 
 Be ye my witnesses I tell you true ! 
 
 Scathe me with scorn ; vent all your purblind ire ! 
 
 But first unroll the ravel of your being 
 To its original. It was your sire — 
 
 Thus far the sane and mad are both agreeing. 
 Here our ideas diverge. Let me say rather, 
 I am a miracle, if not my father. 
 
 Nature shall speak ; a seed is of the root. 
 
 Absorbs its parent's food, lives by its breath ; 
 
 And man of man is as the vernal shoot, 
 
 The seed survives, the stem succumbs to death. 
 
 A seed is but an atom — and the ant. 
 
 Though dowered with brains above the elephant. 
 
 Then why, forsooth, take for your measure size ? 
 
 A vital whole inheres the smallest germ. 
 Nay, in the seed a stronger essence lies — 
 
 The plant in shedding nears its final term. 
 Reverse the course of being. Age would grow 
 To manhood, childhood, and the embryo. 
 
 The son the father was, the father son, 
 
 The daughter by a parity her mother ; 
 The self-same entity now tenants one,
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 223 
 
 Now passes to the person of another. 
 Life rushes headlong like a lava tide, 
 And rolls the molten, casts the cool aside. 
 
 Whence then the loss of pristine memory ? 
 
 A draught of Lethe in your mother's womb, 
 And life's long history shall blurred be 
 
 As the grey legend of an ancient tomb ; 
 Yet, though by Lethe thus inebriate, 
 The soul redintegrates its previous state. 
 
 Madness, you say ! This then is sanity — 
 To boast an ignorance of what has been, 
 
 And to gaze backwards morbid vanity. 
 As through a crystal on a faery scene ? 
 
 Perhaps ? A brain, too fatally enlarged. 
 
 With torturing memories must be surcharged. 
 
 Not such your lot. Then spare a wretched man, 
 Who might not gain oblivion's blessed spell, 
 
 But bore the bane, from span of life to span. 
 Of luckless love — an omnipresent hell ! 
 
 Contrast the iron of your feeble gyves 
 
 With the emotions of a thousand lives. 
 
 For I could map in months the fleeting years, 
 Tell each occurrence of each part of time. 
 
 Or trace its limits by the seas of tears. 
 
 Its mountains by the skies I tried to climb. 
 
 And^what remains ? The burden of a past 
 
 As earth immovable, as heaven vast.
 
 224 
 
 MIRAGE. 
 
 My soul has hoped and hated, loved and laughed, 
 And life itself is not more long, more wide ; 
 
 Yet, strange to tell, I never yet have quaffed 
 Death's final Lethe, never having died. 
 
 I passed from sire to son, from son to sire, 
 
 Quitted my old to seek a new attire. 
 
 So have I been throughout endowed with youth, 
 And youth is ever swayed by coarser passion ; 
 
 Yet once, and only once, as sober truth 
 Learnt I to worship in an holier fashion ; 
 
 That once was as the zenith of my lives, 
 
 Nor would I change it for a world of wives ! 
 
 It was, I said, a century ago ; 
 
 A glorious province owned my sovereign sway ; 
 From infancy my spirit learnt to know 
 
 The luxury of making serfs obey. 
 I towered supernal, as a giant tree 
 Usurping heaven prefigures destiny. 
 
 And why ? Because the ages in their school 
 Had taught the law of lordship over men ; 
 
 Not on the needs of now was framed my rule. 
 But by the precepts of eternal then ; 
 
 Through the long march of years had I been king, 
 
 A master in the art of governing. 
 
 Each separate reign a consort gave for mate — 
 An appanage attaching to the crown ; 
 
 Yet never one dawned on my soul as fate ; 
 
 Theirs might I be; they mine, yet not mine own.
 
 MIRAGE. 225 
 
 Such dalliance was but earthly, and the love, 
 My being hungered after, from above. 
 
 At last from all the centuries there shone 
 
 With sudden dazzle of celestial light, 
 Like some divinity my soul upon, 
 
 A child who bowed me as by mystic might. 
 Indeed herself was all surpassing sweetness, 
 Her nature in its very fibre meetness. 
 
 Ineffable her presence — form and face — 
 
 A very flower of pristine paradise ; 
 The mind of heaven my thoughts rejoiced to trace 
 
 In the deep lustre of those tender eyes. 
 Ye Powers ! I quivered as an aspen tree 
 To hear my goddess tell her love for me. 
 
 Aye, as a river swoU'n by sudden flood 
 
 Shall burst its banks in volume of wild water, 
 
 So welled the torrent of her maiden blood 
 
 Towards my breast. She was a king's proud daughter, 
 
 Yet dared outpour her passion crystal-pure, 
 
 A freewill offering that disdained to lure. 
 
 Ah, me ! Comes back each second of that scene — 
 
 The noontide gemming all a lonely lake ; 
 The avenue of limes we walked between ; 
 
 The heathern tapestry ; the burnished brake. 
 Fain would I worship her, but was afraid, 
 
 So reverend seemed the presence of this maid. 
 
 She saw my tongue was tied, my accents weak, 
 My nerve a-tremble and myself unmanned.
 
 2 26 MIRAGE. 
 
 So would she of her grace be first to speak — 
 
 She was so innocent and yet so grand ; 
 Ne'er through the ages thrilled there such a pleasure 
 As when she opened wide her bosom's treasure. 
 
 Sweet words she whispered with a laughing lip 
 And just one touch of fear lest love be blame ; 
 
 Nor, till its honey I essayed to sip, 
 
 Fled from her cheek the passing glow of shame. 
 
 For me her tribute was a sacred soul, 
 
 Concrete in beauty — an harmonious whole. 
 
 No need for troth — our very eyes were wed, 
 Our breasts a symphony of luscious chords, 
 
 Our love more real than ever bridal bed, 
 Our rapture too magnifical for words. 
 
 But best — twain natures in themselves agreeing, 
 
 Such union was eternal as our being. 
 
 Alas, ere sunset cast its latest beam 
 
 On the dark summits of the ancient hills, 
 
 A darker shadow broke across our dream, 
 O'erwhelming joyance in a depth of ills. 
 
 He tore her from me, he, my ruthless foe. 
 
 And left me lone, the prisoner of woe. 
 
 Bid me not name that most dishonoured name ; 
 
 Its vitriol would burn my lips. Let be. 
 His dastard deeds engraved their proper fame 
 
 On the red annals of our history. 
 Sweet love ! Thy body for his lust he stole, 
 But force was never felon of a soul.
 
 MIRAGE. 227 
 
 And I ! for one so lost what might remain ? 
 
 A fire it was to feel, a hell to think. 
 I sought as anodyne the zany's bane, 
 
 A dullard Lethe in an opiate drink. 
 Then, when the cup that hebetates was full. 
 Flung my poor wreckage to a common trull. 
 
 She bore a child. I was that ill-starred son, 
 
 No longer prince — a miserable hind. 
 Tormented with the thought of being undone. 
 
 And gifted with a more than royal mind. 
 Manhood in memories of her was spent. 
 My life as 'twere a purple garment rent. 
 
 Yet once again in the long waste of years, 
 A woman — and a woman poor but true — 
 
 In woman's pity for a trance of tears 
 
 This shell devoid of kernel willed to woo. 
 
 To her I yielded sympathy, and she 
 
 The last of mothers thus became to me. 
 
 Such, such the history of him you see, 
 
 A most contemptible and sorry thing ! 
 Yet, sirs, remember, as you gaze on me, 
 
 I am a pauper, but was once a king. 
 Nor for a sceptre does my soul repine ; 
 
 Let honour perish, if that love were mine ! 
 
 And she, my goddess, she the sport of other, 
 
 She with the radiance of a flawless jewel, 
 By desecration foul became a mother,
 
 228 MIRAGE. 
 
 Victim of fate more barbarously cruel, 
 For the last birthpang was the pang of slaughter, 
 Whereby her soul passed onwards to her daughter ; 
 
 That babe again in womanhood transmitted 
 The casket of herself to one you know — 
 
 A Royal Lady marvellously fitted 
 By lineage with the grace of long-ago. 
 
 She is the same, with not one feature changed, 
 
 Unless my intellect be all deranged. 
 
 We met. We lovers of that mystic past ; 
 
 I, swathed in rags, and she in regal guise. 
 The noon so long awaited beamed at last ; 
 
 Once more we loved, though 'twere but with our eyes. 
 Then in an ecstasy I lost command, 
 And dared defile the lily of her hand. 
 
 Those pencilled veins I pulsed but for a trice. 
 
 Like one inebriate with newest wine. 
 When falling on me, gripping as a vice. 
 
 Smarted the vengeance of Philistine. 
 In vain I shrilled the magic of her name. 
 She answered never — Was it dread, or shame ? 
 
 And now I writhe a captive. Prithee leave me. 
 
 Who have no less desire than to die ! 
 Nay, if ye will not for my words believe me, 
 
 Believe in this — the dying cannot lie ! 
 To you my tale may sound a madman's dream ; 
 Yet tales for all are true but as they seem.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 Part I. 
 
 The King was at wassail, and wassail deep, 
 
 In Caerleon, the Cymri's royal keep. 
 
 When a sound — as the dead awaked from sleep — 
 
 Ushered in a being so lear, 
 
 Each eye might trace by the festal light 
 
 Bone, nerve, and vein through his robe of white, 
 
 The gore and gash of a fatal fight, 
 
 'Twas the phantom of a seer. 
 
 Then knights upstarted and barons paled. 
 
 For his fieshless visage was dimly veiled. 
 
 And churls' teeth chattered for fear ; 
 
 The black bat circled from beam to beam, 
 
 A grey owl tallied her wanton scream 
 
 With the tempest's re-echoing moan ; 
 
 The watch- dog fleered an affrighted yell, 
 
 While aloft in its turret the curfew-bell 
 
 Flung abroad a foreboding tone. 
 
 Then the word passed forth through the revelling host 
 
 That this was no man, but the quickened ghost 
 
 Of a bard King Stephen had slain ; 
 
 And they all fell aback. 
 
 Lest his touch should wrack 
 
 Their limbs with unearthly pain. 
 
 E'en topers, malgre the wassail bowl, 
 
 'Gan grave to behold as a monkish cowl, 
 
 As he strode through tlie gaping door. 
 
 And with hand upraised,
 
 232 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 'Mid the rabble amazed, 
 
 Fared forth to the dais floor. 
 
 But to arms stood the King — a King and no coward, 
 
 Be the foeman or mortal or spirit untoward — 
 
 And he gripped his good sword. 
 
 While this ancient outpoured 
 
 A peal of malignant laughter, 
 
 And withdrawing his veil 
 
 Up and told a tale 
 
 To knights and to earls. 
 
 To shivering churls, 
 
 Till the hall rang from rush to rafter ! 
 
 ' Lo, the knell,' his voice as a storm-wind cried, 
 
 ' Of doom is tolling ! Pomp, power, and pride 
 
 To the dust shall thy sin abase. 
 
 Lift high. Lord King, the goblet and drink ; 
 
 Yet, anon, ere thou pledgest me, deign to think 
 
 On the Cymri's piteous case. 
 
 We were free ; we are slaves ; 
 
 We were lords ; we are knaves ; 
 
 Yet shall not be enslaven for aye ; 
 
 The future will bring 
 
 A Cymric king 
 
 And the dawn of a brighter day. 
 
 And thou, in the lack of an heir, shalt rue 
 
 The hand that The Seer of The Skerrydd slew. 
 
 Yea, a girl shall be all of Stephen 
 
 To bear his strain to the coming age, 
 
 To limn his descent on an alien page, 
 
 For the measure of fate is even.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 Nor male of thy blood, nor son of thine, 
 
 Shall wield the sceptre from Thames to Tyne 
 
 Of a royal inheritance broken ; 
 
 As thou wak'st shalt thou sleep. 
 
 As thou sow'st shalt thou reap. 
 
 For the prophet the word hath spoken ! ' 
 
 A flash as of flame ; then astonied eyes 
 
 Beheld this unhallowed spectre arise 
 
 By the glare of a flickering taper, 
 
 And on pinions of light. 
 
 To the uttermost night 
 
 Upsoaring, vanish as vapour. 
 
 But the King raised aloft his goblet and drank : 
 
 ' Be witness, my lieges, this mountebank 
 
 In his ghostly teeth hath lied ! 
 
 Forewarned, natheless, let our counsel be wary. 
 
 We boast but one daughter, the Princess Mary, 
 
 And lest this mischance betide, 
 
 We will send an herald across the sea 
 
 Our damsel to fetch from Normandie 
 
 Ere the moon her circuit hath run ; 
 
 And to prove him base to his dastard face. 
 
 And to give him grace for his foul menace, 
 
 We will make of the chit a nun !' 
 
 Like the tocsin bell with its iron clang 
 
 So the vaunting voice of King Stephen rang 
 
 To the tune of a victory won ; 
 
 Yet for all his jest and unfatherly vow, 
 
 The night wind repeated, laughing low : 
 
 233
 
 234 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 ' We will make of the chit a nun !' 
 
 A king's parole — yea of evil token — 
 
 As his solemn seal remaineth unbroken. 
 
 Let the skies descend, 
 
 Let the old world end, 
 
 He must bide by his folly spoken. 
 
 'Twas base, natheless, for a sovereign sire 
 
 To vow for a sacrifice 
 
 In a passing moment of crazy ire 
 
 His pearl, and his pearl of price. 
 
 This chit, so lightly esteemed of the king 
 
 Was in every thought a delicious thing ; 
 
 By the side as he stood of his daughter Mary, 
 
 'Twas the jest that an ogre begot a fairy 
 
 With eyes as the skies 
 
 Of paradise. 
 
 And a lip 
 
 As the dip 
 
 Of harvest eve, 
 
 And hair 
 
 So rare. 
 
 In a tangle of gold 
 
 Its tresses rolled 
 
 From neck unto feet, 
 
 With texture meet 
 
 For a god to weave ; 
 
 And a voice whose notes, like a little bird's, 
 
 In their tender trill seemed to kiss the words ; 
 
 And, lit by the dazzle of maiden mirth, 
 
 A glorified face in the guise of earth ;
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 As the face of the lily abroad it smiled 
 'Twixt the shower and the glad sunbeam, 
 As the blissful thought of a little child 
 In the trance of a waking dream. 
 For a soul so sweet, in her bounteous womb. 
 Had the future no more than a living tomb ? 
 
 She was bound the thrall, and by force majeure, 
 
 Of an holy rule, whose discipline dur 
 
 Deflowers the bloom of love ; 
 
 To vow her heart 
 
 As a worthless part, - 
 
 Her beauty, her grace. 
 
 As lures to debase. 
 
 The warmth of her life 
 
 As with mischief rife. 
 
 To the service of Mary above. 
 
 They had harried her hither from fairy France, 
 
 Rich realm of the rondel, high home of the dance. 
 
 From her childhood's rose-trellised bower ; 
 
 And anon from the Thames to the woodland west. 
 
 Where ripples afield the crystal Test 
 
 By Romsey's embattled tower. 
 
 And the Abbess Matilda, silvern grey 
 
 With the flux of years and austerity. 
 
 For a benison coldly kissed her, 
 
 And prayed her remember. 
 
 That, though December, 
 
 She welcomed May as a sister. 
 
 And they changed her bodice of foreign grace, 
 
 Her robe of samite inwoven with lace. 
 
 235
 
 236 MARY OF ROMSEY 
 
 And the pearls that bedecked her head, 
 
 And they gave her a veil of deadly hue 
 
 With weeds all dark as the dismal yew, 
 
 A religious garb instead ; 
 
 And they cropped the wealth of her hair with shears, 
 
 Till the smile of her eye was lost in tears — 
 
 For the shame, the bitter shame ; 
 
 And when she made plaint in her childish tone, 
 
 They whispered, that, an she be lost and lone, 
 
 'Twas her sire who must bear the blame. 
 
 For in truth the King's royal pleasure was done. 
 
 And Mary of Romsey mad^a nun. 
 
 As the clouds, as the leaves, as the fleetmg showers, 
 
 So sped unobserved her cloistral hours. 
 
 Nor wear, nor care. 
 
 Nor foul, nor fair, 
 
 Nor ill, nor well. 
 
 Nor heaven, nor hell, 
 
 A life all written in sand 
 
 By the daily tide of the tolling bell, 
 
 And anon, for news, a funeral knell, 
 
 Or the clasp of a novice hand. 
 
 A life of the shade, 
 
 Of things that fade. 
 
 With never a colour. 
 
 And never a dolour, 
 
 A Hfe to dwindle a heart. 
 
 For a carven stall in that vast Abbaye 
 
 They had taken the all she cherished — yet stay. 
 
 They could not purloin a part. 
 
 Let the choir resound
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 237 
 
 To the swelling sound 
 
 Of matins, lauds, or prime. 
 
 Her thoughts were free 
 
 As the wind or sea, 
 
 And far from the ceaseless chime. 
 
 The cruel scissors that marred her beauty, 
 
 The rigid round of religious duty, 
 
 An they turned her spirit to stone. 
 
 Still, the dear old days were her very own, 
 
 'Mid the sisterly throng she lived alone. 
 
 In faery vision of home and France ; 
 
 Again she drank each note of the song, 
 
 Again she tripped in the dainty dance, 
 
 While the ritual droned along. 
 
 Yet the priest professed there was never one 
 
 So devout as Mary, the royal nun. 
 
 So told its tale each day unto day. 
 
 Till it fell on a midsummer holiday 
 
 With the Abbess austere she wended her way, 
 
 Past a busy mill with its tumbling wheel. 
 
 And the swirl of the water-flood made her feel 
 
 The flight of a fateless fate. 
 
 Then the hidden fire in her bosom burned. 
 
 And her eye on the chilly Superior turned 
 
 One glance — and may be of hate. 
 
 While she fretted : ' O mother, I hold it a sin 
 
 Fond Philomel to imprison within 
 
 The bars of an holy cage. 
 
 I would barter a life of pious leisure 
 
 For a butterfly's spell of passmg pleasure,
 
 238 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 Ere womanhood merge in age ! ' 
 
 ' My erring sister,' the Abbess said, 
 
 ' I have thought such thoughts in the years long dead, 
 
 And they yielded nor ease nor gain. 
 
 Canst thou turn the Test 
 
 From her seaward quest, 
 
 Or give back to the skies their rain ? 
 
 Let be. Uncloud thy fantasied brain. 
 
 Or seek in penance the purge of pain ! ' 
 
 A sultry noontide wooed them afield 
 
 Where Embly's embowered recesses yield 
 
 The breath of a sea-born wind ; 
 
 It harped, as the lull of a distant lyre, 
 
 A harmony of fate and fire 
 
 To the maiden's attentive mind. 
 
 She dreamed, yet never of Mary above 
 
 And the sad-sweet joys of her mystic love, 
 
 But, as revelled in rays the sun, 
 
 Of the bond of bliss 
 
 That hallowed is 
 
 For her who is not a nun. 
 
 She dreamed, and dreaming an idle lay 
 
 'Gan hum for a rebel's rosary : 
 
 Sing, one makyth none 
 
 In the sum of life, 
 
 And twain but one — 
 
 A man atid a wife. 
 
 To the rhyme of old time doth my ditty run. 
 
 For a damosel shall be waste or won.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 239 
 
 With a heigho I Nonny-no ! 
 And I marvel much it was ever so ! 
 
 In a morning hour 
 So tenderly 
 A happy flower 
 Grew fresh and free. 
 But before nootitide for lack of light 
 She drooped, and she draggled, and died in a night ; 
 With a heigho I Nonny-no I 
 And I marvel much it was ever so ! 
 
 Then alack for the one 
 Per spell of ill 
 Professed a nun. 
 And against her will I 
 The deed it is done, the maid undone, 
 Afid all is weariness under the sun ; 
 With my heigho ! Nonny-no 1 
 Beshrew my star, was it ever so ? 
 
 But anon these wayfarers paused to view 
 
 The forest billows with trough of yew, 
 
 A very ocean of green ; 
 
 And the dream, and the hour. 
 
 And fantasy's power 
 
 Gave a glory to gild the scene. 
 
 'Twas perchance a harbinger of pleasure, 
 
 For adown the glade as in gentle measure 
 
 A footfall aroused the ear. 
 
 It pulsed, and it pulsed, like to Spanish dancing. 
 
 Till its melody merged in a courser's prancing,
 
 240 
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 And the thrill of a presence near. 
 
 Then zephyrs blew lighter 
 
 For hap of the day, 
 
 And beams flecked brighter 
 
 The beechen spray, 
 
 A squirrel upsprang 
 
 To the topmost tree, 
 
 A throstle sang 
 
 In an ecstacy, 
 
 The wild dove fluted, 
 
 The linnet luted. 
 
 The rose shed her scent, 
 
 The violet lent 
 
 An infinite fragrance for her content, 
 
 As she stood on the sward a bright young soul 
 
 All swathed in a tender aureole ; 
 
 For the world, late so triste, to her charmed eyes 
 
 Now blazoned the hues of paradise, 
 
 While Phoebus limned with his gaudiest ray 
 
 The thought of her dreams for many a day. 
 
 This thought that dawned as an orb of light 
 Was in truth a gallant and gracious knight. 
 With a laugh as the morning of mirth and might. 
 And the deep-set eye of December night, 
 Sir Mathieu, Count of Alsace ; 
 And his words of greeting— an coy and few- 
 Fell sweet on her soul, as the early dew 
 
 Refreshens the germing grass ; 
 
 For she stole but a glimpse of his manhood's glory. 
 
 Like the rose of the summer sun.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 24 1 
 
 To repeat in herself the ancient story 
 
 Of a heart never wooed, yet won. 
 
 He tethered his steed 
 
 To a hawthorn tree, 
 
 For he came to plead, 
 
 And on bended knee, 
 
 How he journeyed afar, 
 
 From beyond the sea, 
 
 Nor would rest from his quest, 
 
 Till unburdened his breast 
 
 Of the message he carried for her behest. 
 
 Rich his helmet's blazon, 
 
 Rich the diapason, 
 
 E'en of a halting address ; 
 
 For his speech was his smile, 
 
 The guerdon of guile. 
 
 Though it told of a true tendresse ; 
 
 And when he besought her with courtly art 
 
 To grant of her grace an audience apart, 
 
 A lustre of love uplit her eye 
 
 To melt — as a rainbow in the sky. 
 
 In vain the Abbess essayed to chide, 
 
 As he drew perforce her sister aside — 
 
 She wondering how he durst — 
 
 And then he prattled, as lovers will, 
 
 Such pretty conceits as overfill 
 
 The cup of a soul athirst. 
 
 And his form encompassed the tremulous nun. 
 
 As sheaves of harvest a ripening sun 
 
 Ablaze in the heaven high ;
 
 242 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 She felt his magic in waves pass o'er her, 
 
 His every sense and nerve adore her, 
 
 Till eye was blended with eye ; 
 
 And he clasped to himself for a little space 
 
 In his palms profane her uplifted face, 
 
 Nor courted its smile in vain, 
 
 For her head 'gan droop on his mailed breast 
 
 As a little bird that has lost its nest 
 
 And found it at last again ; 
 
 And the Abbess beheld, for her breath to forsake her. 
 
 This stranger knight. 
 
 As a feather hght. 
 
 Upraise to his mettled steed 
 
 The freight all-fairy 
 
 Of Princess Mary, 
 
 And, with never a poor God-speed, 
 
 In his circling arms for a captive take her ; 
 
 While ere she had shrilled, ' By our Ladye, stay ! ' 
 
 The knight and the nun were to horse and away.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 243 
 
 Part II. 
 
 Thus the shadow all suddenly passed away 
 
 In the glorious sheen of a new sun-ray ; 
 
 Ne'er danced a merrier bride, 
 
 Ne'er one so prinkt with pride, 
 
 For her life was enlarged in a second's span, 
 
 And firm in her trust of a lordly man, 
 
 She scorned Holy Church's solemn ban, 
 
 Nor weighed in the scales a puissant Pope 
 
 With the joy of to-day and to-morrow's hope. 
 
 Sir Mathieu alone she worshipped as king, 
 
 Lord paramount by right of ring, 
 
 And to honour his reign 
 
 She bare him twain 
 
 Sweet pledges of love at the price of pain ; 
 
 For to souls so enraptured heaven is earth, 
 
 And love a new and angelic birth, 
 
 And all things magical seem ; 
 
 The summer shines ever. 
 
 The winter comes never. 
 
 In that wonderful waking dream. 
 
 Alas ! 'tis an old and a sorrowful tale. 
 
 That the hour shall chime when a little scale 
 
 First falls from a charmed eye ; 
 
 Then for sting of pain 
 
 The poor eye would fain 
 
 Replace the scale on its orb again. 
 
 And hug to its breast a lie. 
 
 Now Sir Mathieu appraised as a priceless pearl
 
 244 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 The spouse to invest him Bononia's earl, 
 
 And across the seas had run, 
 
 To win for his house such a weight of weal, 
 
 And by sacrilegious device to steal 
 
 From Holy Church a nun ; 
 
 Yet the man was true knight, 
 
 With a blazon bright, 
 
 And he wot that the hand he pressed, 
 
 The heart that he held by the wrong of right. 
 
 Was of all the purest and best. 
 
 To his eye she was sweet 
 
 From crown to feet, 
 
 And he knew such a beautiful being was meet 
 
 To wed with an honest soul ; 
 
 For, alas ! his heart 
 
 Had been pledged — in part. 
 
 And in love the part is the whole. 
 
 Those mysterious orbs of deep December, 
 
 Like the fire alurk in a smouldering ember. 
 
 Had burnt with a passion before. 
 
 As the heat intense of a tropical sun. 
 
 For the very reverse of a chastened nun. 
 
 For the Lady Alianor. 
 
 Her lips more ruby than Rhenish wine, 
 
 Her arts and graces served to entwine 
 
 A spell his being around ; 
 
 Like the troubled ocean. 
 Her mad devotion 
 
 Disdained a controlling bound. 
 
 For when tidings came, how Sir Mathieu had taken 
 
 A wealthier spouse, herself forsaken,
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 245 
 
 The thirst of hate 
 
 Or soon, or late, 
 
 To the lees she vowed should be slaken. 
 
 She vowed — and the bond of malison kept, 
 
 For the mistress watched while the mother slept ! 
 
 Short years sped by, 
 
 And none knew why 
 
 Sir Mathieu abroad would range, 
 
 So often roaming. 
 
 So seldom homing, 
 
 A witch must have wrought the change ! 
 
 Did he covet the rule. 
 
 Of the false and the fool, 
 
 Or gird at the tender sway 
 
 Of a gentle wife 
 
 Who had yielded her life 
 
 As the flower to the fierce sun-ray ? 
 
 Had he wearied so soon of his dainty toy ? 
 
 Did sugar surfeit, or honey cloy — 
 
 Say, who may divine the cause ? 
 
 For certes one 
 
 With the soul of a nun 
 
 Ne'er dreamt that Sir Mathieu's ring alone 
 
 Was all that his wife could boast her own — 
 
 The rest was Alianor's. 
 
 But anon a presentiment 'gan to dawn 
 
 On this simple soul, as a leaden morn 
 
 Forebodes a tempestuous day ; 
 
 And a thrill surpassing of apprehension, 
 
 Like a bow full-strung by Titanic tension,
 
 246 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 Winged her beautiful trust away. 
 
 For perchance she strayed 
 
 With a serving-maid 
 
 By the hollow resounding shore, 
 
 And the billows as flails, 
 
 And the flapping sails, 
 
 Beat the thrum of a threshing floor. 
 
 And the bell of a buoy in fitful toll 
 
 One note of reproach to her troubled soul 
 
 With direful din rehearsed : ' Lo, noiv 
 
 Behold the end of a broken vow ! ' 
 
 Then the storm's white horses careered apace, 
 
 The lightning glared in her blanched face, 
 
 Till its luminance burnt her breath ; 
 
 And the serving-maid sobbed : ' Sweet mistress Mary, 
 
 ' I prithee go seek a sanctuary, 
 
 * Ere both of us die the death ! ' 
 
 Yet the Princess answered to never a word. 
 
 For her eye ranged afar, her ear but heard. 
 
 As a presage of ill from a darkling sky. 
 
 The curlew's quaver of agony. 
 
 Stark she stood, with attire all dripping and drenched. 
 
 The spirit within her parched and quenched. 
 
 Till, brave per despair, the maiden wrenched 
 
 Her mistress distraught away ; 
 
 But, as trump to the foemen, 
 
 So sounded this omen 
 
 The death of her happy day ; 
 
 Yea, her heart foreknew 
 
 It would all come true. 
 
 For the rose of fair fortune had turned to rue.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 247 
 
 Anon, unflinching 'mid thunder's rattle, 
 
 Her ear was stunned by the whispered tattle, 
 
 How her lord had fared with the King to battle, 
 
 To the siege of Driancourt ; 
 
 And the riddle they solved of his frequent tarry, 
 
 In a guage his vizor was wont to carry — 
 
 The glove of Alianor. 
 
 The armies were set in battle array 
 
 To the roll of the drum and trumpet's bray, 
 
 And the pursuivants caracolling gay 
 
 Made the game of death to resemble play. 
 
 But the clarion sounded the charge, and then 
 
 Rose the ravening roar of a lion's den — 
 
 The galloping horses, 
 
 As stars in their courses, 
 
 The serried spears 
 
 With their harvest of tears, 
 
 The mammoths of might 
 
 Caparisoned bright. 
 
 The squadron's thunder. 
 
 The rending asunder 
 
 By long-drawn arrow 
 
 Of joints and marrow. 
 
 The teeming flood 
 
 Of the bravest blood, 
 
 With its gush as the sluice 
 
 Of the red grape's juice. 
 
 The craze for killing 
 
 And lust of spilling,
 
 248 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 Hearts harder to feel 
 
 Than their cruel steel, 
 
 The crash, and the gash, 
 
 And the madman's dash. 
 
 The lance, and the prance, 
 
 And the hell-ward dance. 
 
 Sword clashing with sword, 
 
 And man with man, 
 
 Death stalking abroad 
 
 In the rear and the van, 
 
 The sough of the slain. 
 
 The discord of pain. 
 
 And, echoed above the Satanic din, 
 
 The ghastly laugh of the strong who win. 
 
 And, down in the deep on the gory grass, 
 
 O'erweighted with mail. Sir Mathieu d' Alsace, 
 
 A staggering giant in fetters bound 
 
 By weapons massing above and around, 
 
 And the foemen before and behind ; 
 
 Unhelmeted, disarmed, unhorsed, 
 
 Storm-battered, stricken, earthward forced, 
 
 With blood his eyeballs blind. 
 
 'Mid all that throng of the surging fight 
 
 Will ne'er an arm for a wounded knight 
 
 Strike but one blow to save ? 
 
 Yes, one as by magical spell arose 
 
 To ease his burden, ward the blows. 
 
 No knight — a slender knave — 
 
 To drag him from the wild melee. 
 
 To fan his brow with breath of day, 
 
 And slake the fire of thirst.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 249 
 
 To Staunch his wounds, to kiss his face, 
 
 To wrap his form in mad embrace. 
 
 His best, and yet his worst ; 
 
 To croon, ' Dear heart, for evermore 
 
 I am thine own, thy Alianor, 
 
 A woman, though a knave ; 
 
 I dogged thy danger, and in quest 
 
 To foeman's steel I bared my breast, 
 
 To hold thee and to have !' 
 
 On her lips yet hot were the words of sin. 
 When there trembled above the battle din 
 The anguished cry of a proud ladye : 
 ' Aside, sir knave, an knave thou be ? 
 Gramercy for thy courtesy. 
 This sad devoir pertains to me.' 
 
 ' To thee ! Not so,' shrilled Alianor, 
 
 ' By no divine or human law 
 
 Is here thy proper place. 
 
 My right in him I yield to none. 
 
 My title ? All that love has done. 
 
 High honour, not disgrace !' 
 
 Again forth-issued the mother s voice, 
 
 All aquiver with pain. 
 
 Yet in royal disdain, 
 
 ' Sire, I adjure thee, take thy choice ! 
 
 'Twas taken,' hissed the mistress knave, 
 ' When this frail hand was strong to save 
 The life of mutual love.
 
 250 MARY OF ROMSEY. 
 
 No wife art thou to him, Nun Mary, 
 In teeth of Holy Church I dare thee 
 Thy wedding ring to prove ! 
 At best the partner of a part, 
 The outer texture of a heart 
 For thee that never beat ; 
 That shattered shell alone be thine, 
 The kernel of the man is mine 
 For love a guerdon meet !" 
 
 Once for all, as a cause that must needs be heard 
 
 Against the shriek of a mocking-bird, 
 
 Her motherhood craved one little word 
 
 To end this unseemly strife. 
 
 But a tongue without tone. 
 
 And an eye of stone, 
 
 Told their tale to his weeping wife. 
 
 As a phantom dazed, 
 
 His visage he raised, 
 
 From the one to the other garishly gazed, 
 
 Then anon with a sigh of surpassing pain, 
 
 As a babe to its rest 
 
 On his mistress' breast. 
 
 Let droop his dull head again. 
 
 Enough. The glamour dispelled at last. 
 Her bridal ring at his false feet cast. 
 The deserted spouse in her passion passed 
 From his fateful presence for ever. 
 With their sire, of yore so basely kind, 
 Her beauteous babes she left behind,
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 25 1 
 
 Lest their innocent faces should serve to bind 
 
 The link she had vowed to sever. 
 
 No tear in her eye, 
 
 In her bosom no sigh, 
 
 But the print of despair, 
 
 And the curse of care 
 
 Deep-graven in lines on her features fair, 
 
 A broken thing. 
 
 With a lover's ring 
 
 No longer mocking her hand, 
 
 She wandered home. 
 
 By the way she had come, 
 
 To the sorrowful English land. 
 
 And Romsey beheld — to thrill for the sight — 
 
 A pilgrim in sombre apparel dight, 
 
 And lips all blanched by a bitter blight, 
 
 Whence issued a wastrel cry ; 
 
 ' For the love of Our Ladye let me in, 
 
 I come to confess and to purge my sin, 
 
 Ere I lay me down and die !' 
 
 It was night when they passed her within their portal, 
 
 A religious indeed and a loveless mortal, 
 
 With never a heart to bring ; 
 
 They charged a novice her watch to keep, 
 
 As she sank to rest in a fitful sleep, 
 
 And at compline, in tones that fain would weep, 
 
 The nun o'erheard her sing : — 
 
 ' Ring^ ivedding bells, a muffled peal ! 
 
 Blow, roses, berries oj green holly I 
 Ye fonder hearts, forget to feel. 
 
 For loving is a game of folly,
 
 252 MARY OF ROMSEY, 
 
 And wedlock but the pale twilight, 
 Chance meetifig of the sun and moon, 
 
 He leaves her to the bitter night, 
 She loves, she loses — all too soon ! 
 
 A fid what remains ? A crown of stars 
 To mock her with their lesser ray ; 
 
 Sirius, Orion, Vega, Mars, 
 
 Ye shine not ivith the sheen of day I 
 
 Then chime, death-bells, in merry clang 
 The passing of a lovelorn soul, 
 
 Ye Joy-bells, for the sharper pang 
 That folloivs disenchantment, toll I 
 
 Float, midsummer, eternal snow. 
 And overgloom thy gaudy sun. 
 
 The desolated moon lies low, 
 A nu?i, a bride, anon a nun /' 
 
 So the life of the lover 
 
 Was spent and over, 
 
 And sear-grown Time 
 
 Winged her flight along, 
 
 With an endless chime, 
 
 And a descant song, 
 
 And the ritual's antiphon ; 
 
 While Princess Mary 
 
 In her sanctuary 
 
 Grew to feast on its monotone, 
 
 For it lent to her soul, as a mellow wine, 
 
 The dullard peace of an anodyne.
 
 MARY OF ROMSEY. 253 
 
 Anon when the gold of her tresses was grey, 
 
 And the memory stilled of a happier day, 
 
 And her soul 'gan wend its heavenward way, 
 
 They chose her Abbess of their Abbaye ; 
 
 And a delicate stone 
 
 Records the tale 
 
 Of a riven veil. 
 
 And a broken vow. 
 
 In a little curl, 
 
 That has burst the furl 
 
 Of the Abbess's coiffed brow. 
 
 For in truth the King's ill-pleasure was done, 
 
 And Mary of Romsey died a nun.
 
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