THE GOLDEN HELM

Cover

THE
GOLDEN HELM
AND OTHER VERSE

BY
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET
1903

TO
HOWARD PEASE

BY THE SAME WRITER

URLYN THE HARPER AND OTHER SONG
THE QUEEN'S VIGIL AND OTHER SONG

Thanks are due to Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co., for permission to reprint "The King's Death," "The Three Kings," and the first part of "Averlaine and Arkeld," from The Cornhill Magazine; to the editor of Macmillan's Magazine for leave to reprint "In the Valley"; to the editor of The Saturday Review for leave to reprint "Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière"; and to the editors of The Pilot, The Outlook, The Pall Mall Gazette, Country Life, The Week's Survey, and The Broadsheet, for like courtesy with regard to a number of "The Songs of Queen Averlaine."

Contents

The Torch
The Unknown Knight
The King's Death
The Knight of the Wood
Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière
In the Valley
The Vision: a Christmas Mystery
The Three Kings
The Songs of Queen Averlaine
The Golden Helm

The Torch

Through skies blown clear by storm, o'er storm-spent seas,

Day kindled pale with promise of full noon

Of blue unclouded; no night-weary wind

Ruffled the slumberous, heaving deeps to white,

Though round the Farne Isles the waves never sink

In foamless sleep--about the pillared crags

For ever circling with unresting spray.

At dawn's first glimmer, from his island-cell--

Rock-hewn, secure from tempest--Oswald came

With slow and weary step, white-faced and worn

With night-long vigil for storm-perilled souls.

His anxious eye with sharp foreboding bright--

He scanned the treacherous flood; the long froth-trail

That marks the lurking reefs; the jag-toothed chasms

Which, foaming, gape at night beneath the keel--

The mouth of hell to storm-bewildered ships:

But no scar-stranded vessel met his glance.

Relieved, he drank the glistering calm of morn,

With nostril keen and warm lips parted wide;

While, gradually, the sun-enkindled air

Quickened his pallid cheek with youthful flame,

Though lonely years had silvered his dark head,

And round his eyes had woven shadow-meshes.

Clearly he caught the ever-clamorous cries

Of guillemot and puffin from afar,

Where, canopied by hovering, white wings,

They crowded naked pinnacles of rock.

He watched, with eyes of glistening tenderness,

The brooding eider--Cuthbert's sacred bird,

That bears among the isles his saintly name--

Breast the calm waves; a black, wet-gleaming fin

Cleft the blue waters with a foaming jag,

Where, close behind the restless herring-herd,

With ravening maw of death, the porpoise sped.

Oswald, light-tranced, dreamed in the sun awhile;

Till, suddenly, as some old sorrow starts,

Though years have glided by with soothing lull,

The gust of ancient longing rent his bliss:

His narrow isle, as by some darkling spell,

More narrow shrank; the gulls' unceasing cries

Grew still more fretful; and his hermit-life

A sea-scourged desolation to him seemed.

The holy tree of peace--which he had dreamt

Would flourish in the wilderness afresh,

Upspringing ever in new ecstasy

Of branching beauty and white blooms of truth,

Till its star-tangling crest should cleave the sky,

And angels rustle through its topmost boughs--

Seemed sapless, rootless. Through his quivering limbs

His famine-wasted youth to life upleapt

With passionate yearning for humanity:

The stir of towns; the jostling of glad throngs;

Welcoming faces and warm-clasping hands;

Yea, even for the lips and eyes of Love

He hungered with keen pangs of old desire:

And, if for him these might not be, he craved

At least the exultation of swift peril--

The red-foamed riot of delirious strife

That rears a bloody crest o'er peaceful shires,

And, slaying, in a swirl of slaughter dies.

With brow uplifted and strained, pulsing throat,

And salt-parched lips out-thrust, unto the sun

He stretched beseeching hands, as though he sought

To snatch some glittering disaster thence.

One moment radiant thus; and then once more

His arms dropped listless, and he slowly shrank

Within his sea-stained habit, cowering dark

Amid the azure blaze of sea and sky.

Then, stirring, with impatient step he moved

Across the isle to where the rocky shore,

Forming a little, crag-encircled bay,

Sloped steeply to the level of the sea;

But, as he neared the edges of the tide,

Startled, he paused, as, marvelling, he saw

A woman on the shelving, wet, black rock,

Lying, forlorn, among the storm-wrack, white

And motionless; still wet, her raiment clung

About her limbs, and with her wet, gold hair

Green sea-weed tangled. Oswald on her looked

Amazed, as one who, in a sea-born trance,

Discovers the lone spirit of the storm,

Self-spent at last, and sunk in dreamless slumber

Within some caverned gloom. Coldly he watched

The little waves creep up the glistening rock,

And, faltering, slide once more into the deep,

As though they feared to waken her: at length,

When one, more venturous, about her stole,

And moved her heavy hair as if with life,

He shuddered; and a lightning-knowledge struck

His heart with fear; and in a flash he knew

That no sea-phantom couched before him lay,

But some frail fellow-creature, tempest-tost,

Hung yet in peril on the edge of death,

Her weak life slipping from the saving grasp

While he delayed. He sprang through plashy weed,

O'er slippery ridges, to the rock whereon

She lay with upturned face and close-shut eyes--

One hand across her breast, the other dipped

Within a shallow pool of emerald water,

With blue-veined fingers clutching the red fronds

Of frail sea-weed. Then Oswald, bending, felt

Upon his cheek the feeble breath that still

Fluttered between the pallid, parted lips.

In trembling haste, he loosed the sodden cords

That bound her to a spar; and with hot hands

He chafed her icy limbs, until the glow

Of life returned. With fitful quivering

The white lids opened; and she looked on him

With dull, unwondering eyes whose deep-sea blue

The gloom of death's late passing shadowed yet;

When suddenly light thrilled them, and bright fear

Flashed from their depths, and, with a little gasp,

She strove to rise; but Oswald with quick words

Calmed her weak terror, and she sank once more,

Closing her eyes; and, gently lifting her

Within his arms--her gold hair hanging straight

And heavy with sea-water, as he plunged

Knee-deep through pools of crackling bladder-weed--

He bore her, unresisting, o'er the isle

Unto the rock-built shelter he had reared,

Some little way apart from his own cell,

For storm-stayed fishers or wrecked mariners.

He laid her on a bed of withered bents,

And ministered to her with gentle hands

And ceaseless care; till, wrapped in warm, deep sleep,

She sank oblivious. Silently he placed

His island-fare beside her on the board,

Lest she should wake in need; then, with hushed step,

He turned to go; but, ere he reached the door,

He paused, and looked again towards the bed,

As though he feared his strange sea-guest might flee

Like some wild spirit, born of wondering foam,

That wins from man the shelter of his breast,

Then, on a night of moon-enchanted tides,

Leaps with shrill laughter to its native seas,

Bearing his soul within its glistening arms,

To drown his peace on earth and hope of heaven

In cold eternities of lightless deeps.

But still in dreamless sleep the stranger lay,

With parted lips and breathing soft and calm;

About her head unloosed, her hair outshone,

Among the grey-green bents, like fine, red gold.

So beautiful she was that Oswald, pierced

With quivering rapture, dared no longer bide,

But, with quick fingers, softly raised the latch,

And stumbled o'er the threshold. As he went,

A flock of sea-gulls from the bent-thatched roof

Rose, querulous, and round him, wheeling, swept,

With creaking wings and cold, black eyes agleam;

Yet Oswald saw them not, nor heard their cries;

Nor saw he, as he paced the eastern crags,

How, round the Farnes, the dreaming ocean lay

In broad, unshadowed, sapphire ecstasy,

That glowed to noon through slow, uncounted hours.

His early gloom had vanished; time and space

And earth and sea no longer compassed him;

One thought alone consumed him--beauty slept

Within the shelter of his hermitage,

Upon grey, rustling bents, with golden hair.

He roamed, unresting, till the copper sun

Sank in a steel-grey sea, and earth and sky

Were strewn with shadows--wavering and dim--

To weave a pathway for the dawning moon,

That she, from night's oblivion, might create

With the cold spell of her enchantments old

A phantom earth with magical, bright seas,

A vaster heaven of unrevealed stars.

Unmoving, on a headland of swart crag

That jutted gaunt and sharp against the night,

Stood Oswald, cowled and silent. Hour by hour

He gazed across the sea, which nothing shadowed,

Save where--now dim, now white--a lonely sail

Hung, restless, o'er a fisher's barren toil.

Yet Oswald saw nor sail nor moon nor sea:

His heart kept vigil by the little house

Wherein the stranger slumbered; and it seemed

His life, by some strange power within him stayed,

Awaited the unlatching of the door.

But now, within the hut, the sleeper dreamt

Of foaming caverns and o'erwhelming waters;

Then, shuddering awake, awhile she lay,

And watched the moonlight, cold and white, which poured

Through the warm dusk, from the high window-slit;

When, all at once, the strangeness of the room

Closed in upon her with bewildering dread.

She stirred; the bents, beneath her, rustled strange;

She started in affright, and, swaying, stood

Within the streaming moonlight, till, at last,

In memory, once more disaster swept

Over her life, and left her, desolate,

Upon bleak crags of alien seas unknown.

Yet, through the tumult of tempestuous dark,

Above the echo of despairing cries,

A calm voice sounded; and beyond the whirl

Of foaming death, wherein she caught the gleam

Of well-loved faces drowning in cold seas,

A living face shone out--a beacon clear:

Then numbing fear fell from her, and she moved,

Unlatched the door, and stole into the night.

One moment, dazzled by the full-moon glare,

She paused, a shivering form within the wide

And glittering desolation--lone and frail.

But Oswald, watchful on the eastern scars,

Seeing her, forward came with eager pace

To meet her; and, as he drew swiftly near,

His cowl fell backward; and she knew again

The face that calmed the terrors of her dreams.

Yet, with the knowledge, through her being stole,

Vague fear more strange, more impotent than the blind

Unquestioning dread when death had round her stormed;

No peril of the body could arouse

Such ecstasy of terror in her soul,

Which seemed upborne upon the shivering crest

Of some great wave, just curving, ere it crash

Upon the crags of time. Yet, though she feared

When Oswald paused, uncertain, quick she spake,

As though she sought to parry doom with words.

She questioned him--scarce heeding his replies--

How she had hither come; when, suddenly,

Sped by her fluttering words, the last, dim cloud

Rolled from her memory, and she saw revealed

Within a pitiless glare of naked light

The utmost horror of her desolation.

Mute with despair, she stood with parted lips,

And then cried fiercely: "Hath the sea upcast

None other on this shore? Am I, alone,

Of all my kin who sailed in that doomed ship,

Flung back to life?" And as, with piteous glance,

He answered her: "Ah God, that I, with them,

Had died! O traitor cords that held too sure

My body to the broken spar of life!

O feeble seas, that fumed in such wild wrath,

Yet could not quench so frail a thing as I!"

With passionate step, across the isle she ran,

And leapt from crag to crag, until she stood

Upon a dizzy scar that jutted sheer

Above low-lapping waves. Then once again

Her moaning cry was heard among the Isles:

"O bitter waters, give them back to me!

You shall not keep them; all your waves of woe

Cannot withhold from me those dauntless lives

That were my life. Surely they cannot rest

Without me; even from your unfathomed graves

Surely my love will draw them to my arms!"

As though in tremulous expectation tranced,

She yearned, with arms outstretched; as dawn arose

Exultant from the sea, and with clear rays

Kindled her wind-tost hair to streaming flame.

Awhile she stood, then, moaning, slowly sank

Upon the crag; and Oswald came to her

With words of comfort which unloosed her pent

And aching woe in swift, tumultuous tears.

Oswald, in silent anguish, drew apart,

Gazing, unseeing, o'er the dawning waves;

Until at last the tempest of her grief,

In low and fitful sobbing, spent itself;

When, turning to him, once again she spake,

And, shuddering, with faltering voice, outpoured

The tale of her despair: and Oswald heard

How she, who sat thus strangely by his side,

Marna, a sea-earl's daughter, had besought

Her father, when the old sea-hunger lit

His eyes--as waves shot through with stormy fight--

For leave to bear him company but once,

When, with his sons, he rode the adventurous seas;

How he had yielded with reluctant love;

And how, from out the firth of some far strand,

Their galley rode, beneath a flaming dawn;

How her young heart had leapt to see the sails

Unfurled to take the wind, as, one by one,

Toil-glistening rowers shipped the dripping oars,

And loosened every sheet before the breeze;

How, as the ship with timbers all astrain,

Leapt to mid-sea, through Marna's body thrilled

A kindred rapture, and there came to her

The sheer, delirious joy of them true-born

To wander with the foam--each creaking cord

That tugged the quivering mast unto her singing

Of unknown shores and far, enchanted lands,

Beyond the blue horizon; how, all day,

They rode, undaunted, through the spinning surf;

But, as the sun dipped, in the cold, grey tide,

The wind, that since the dawn with steady speed

Had filled the sails, now came in fitful gusts,

Fierce and yet fiercer, till the sullen waves

Were lashed to anger, and the waters leapt

To tussle with the furies of the air;

And how the ship, in the encounter caught,

Was tossed on crests of swirling dark, or dropped

Between o'er-toppling walls of whelming night;

How in those hours--too dread for thought or speech--

Her father's hand had bound her to a spar;

And, even as--the cord between his teeth--

He tugged the last knot sure, the vessel crashed

Upon a cleaving scar; and she but saw

The strong, pale faces looking upon death,

Before the fierce, exultant waters closed

With cold oblivion o'er them; and no more

She knew, until she waked within the hut,

To find her world, in one disastrous night,

In one swift surge of roaring darkness, swept

From her young feet; her kindred, home and friends,

And all familiar hopes and joys and fears

Dropt like a garment from her life, which now

Stood naked on the edge of some new world

Of unknown terrors.

Oswald heard her tale

With pitying glance; yet in his eyes arose

A strange, new light, which as each gust of grief

Shook out the fluttering words, more brightly burned;

So that, when Marna ceased, it seemed to her

That he, in holy contemplation rapt,

Had heeded not her woe; and from her heart

Burst out a cry: "Ah God, I am alone!"

But, stung by her shrill anguish, Oswald waked

From his bright reverie, and his shining eyes

Darkened with swift compassion, as he turned

And, trembling, spake: "Nay, not alone..."

Then mute

He stood--his pale lips clenched--as though within

There surged a torrent which he dared not loose.

Marna looked wondering up; but, when her eyes

Saw the white passion of his face, her soul

Was tossed once more on crests of unknown fears;

Yet rapture warred with terror in her heart;

She trembled, and her breath came short and quick.

She dared not raise her eyes again to his,

Till, on her straining ears, his words, once more,

Fell, slow and cold and clear as water dripping

Between locked sluice-gates: "Nothing need you fear.

Beyond the sea of unknown terrors lie

White havens of an undiscovered peace.

For even this bleak, scar-embattled coast

May yield safe harbour to the storm-spent soul.

Your world has fallen from you that you may

Enter another world, more beautiful,

Built 'neath the shadow of the throne of God.

There shall you find new friends, who yet will seem

Familiar to your eyes, because their souls

Have passed through kindred perils and despairs."

He ceased; and silence, trembling, 'twixt them hung;

Till Marna, gazing yet across the sea,

Rent it with words: "Where may I find this peace?"

And Oswald answered: "In an inland dale

The Sisters of the Cross await your coming,

With ever-open gate. Within seven days,

My brethren from the mainland will put out,

Bringing me food; on their return with them

You may embark. Till then, this barren rock

Must be your home." Exultant light once more

Leapt, flashing, in the depths of his dark eyes.

Yet Marna looked not up, but, slowly, spake:

"Yea, I must go.... But you...."

Then in dismay

She stopped, as though the thought had slipped unknown

From her full heart; but Oswald caught the words,

And spake with hard, quick speech, as if to baffle

Some doubt that strove within him: "On this Isle

I bide, till God shall kindle my weak soul

To burn, a beacon o'er His lonely seas."

Once more he paused; and perilous silence swayed

Between them, until Oswald, quaking, rose,

As one who dared no longer rest beneath

O'er-toppling doom. Yet, with calm voice, he spake:

"Even within this wilderness abides

Such beauty that, in your brief sojourn here,

Your soul shall starve not; all about you sweeps

The ever-changing wonder of the sea;

But if, too full of bitter memories,

The bright waves darken, you may lift your eyes

To watch the swooping gull; the flashing tern;

The stately cormorant and the kittiwake--

Most beautiful of all the island-birds;

Or, if your woman's heart should crave some grace

More exquisite, see, frail bell-campions blow,

As foam-flowers on the shallow, sandy turf."

As thus he spake, a light in Marna's eyes

Arose, and sorrow left her for awhile:

And she with bright glance questioned him, and watched

The hovering gulls, and plucked the snowy blooms,

With little cries at each discovered beauty.

Yet Oswald by her side walked silently,

And watched, as one struck mute with anguished fear,

Her eager eyes, and heard her chattering words.

Then, suddenly, he left her, but returned

Within the hour, with faltering step, and spake

With tremulous voice: "We two must part awhile;

For I must keep lone vigil in my cell

Six days and nights, with fasting and with prayer;

Meanwhile, within the little hut for you

Are food and shelter till the brethren come.

When I must give you over to their care."

Marna, with wondering heart, looked up at him;

But such a wild light flickered in his eyes

She dared not speak; and, shuddering, he turned,

And strode back swiftly to the hermitage.

Marna looked after him with yearning gaze,

As though her heart would have her call him back,

Yet her lips moved not; motionless, she watched

Until he passed from sight; then, sinking low

Among the flowers, she wept, she knew not why.

And, as the door closed on him, Oswald fell

Prone on the cold, black, vigil-furrowed rock

That paved his narrow cell; and long he lay

As in the clutch of some dread waking-trance,

Nor stirred until the shadows into night

Were woven. Then unto his feet he leapt

With this wild cry: "O God, why hast Thou sent

This scourge most bitter for my naked soul?

I feared not storm nor solitude, O God;

I shrank not from the tempest of Thy wrath;

Though oft my weak soul wavered, trampled o'er

By deedless hours, and yearned unto the world,

Ever afresh Thy love hath bound me fast

Unto this island of Thy lonely seas;

And I, who deemed that I at last might reach--

I who had come through all--Thy golden haven,

Knew not Thy hand withheld this last despair,

This scourge most bitter, being most beautiful."

Then on his knees he sank, and tried to pray

Before the Virgin's shrine, where ever burned

His votive taper with unfailing light.

But when his lips would breathe the holy name,

His heart cried: "Marna! Marna!" Every pulse

Throbbed "Marna!" And his body shook and swayed,

As though it strove to utter that one word,

And cry it once unto eternal stars,

Though it should perish crying. Through the cell

The silence murmured: "Marna!" And without

A lone gull wailed it to the windy night.

He lifted his wild eyes, and in the shrine

He saw the face of Marna, which outburned

The flickering taper; on the gloom up-surged,

Foam-white, the face of Marna; till the dark

Flowed pitiful o'er him, and on the stone

He sank unconscious. Night went slowly by,

And pale dawn stole in silence through his cell;

And, in the light of morn, the taper died,

With feeble guttering; yet he never stirred,

Though noonday waxed and waned.

But Marna roamed

All night beneath the stars. To her it seemed

That not until the closing of the door

Had all hope perished: now death tore, afresh,

Her father and her brothers from her arms.

By day and night and under sun and moon

She roamed unresting--seeing, heeding naught--

Till weariness o'ercame her, and she slept;

And, as she slumbered, snowy-plumed peace

Nestled within her heart; and, when she waked,

She only yearned for that dim, cloistral calm,

Embosomed deep in some bough-sheltered vale,

Whither the boat must bear her.

In his cell,

As night paled slowly to the seventh morn,

Oswald arose--the fire within his eyes

Yet more intense, more fierce. With eager hand

He clutched the latch, and, flinging wide the door,

He strode into the dawn. One moment, dazed,

As though bewildered by the light, he paused;

But, when his glance in restless roving fell

On Marna, standing on the western crag

Against the setting moon, beneath the dawn,

His passion surged upon him, and he shook;

Then, springing madly forth, he, stumbling, ran,

And, falling at her feet upon the rock,

His voice rang out in fearful exultation:

"You shall not go! I cannot let you go!

Has not the tumult tossed you to my breast?

Yea, and not all the storms of all the seas

Shall drag you from me! Nay, you shall not go!

For we will live together on this isle

Which time has builded in the deeps for us--

We two together, one in ecstasy,

Throughout eternity; for time shall fall

From off us; and the world shall be no more:

And God, if God should stand between us now..."

Faltering, he paused; and Marna stood, afraid,

Quaking before him; but she spake no word.

Across the waters came the plash of oars;

But Oswald heard them not, and once more cried:

"You will not go--thrusting me back to death?

For now I know the strange, new thing you brought

For me from out the storm was life--yea, life;

And I am one arisen from the grave.

You will not thrust me back and take again

That which you came through storm to bring to me?

You will not go? I cannot let you go!"

He ceased; and now the even plash of oars

Came clearer. One dread moment Marna stood

Swaying; then, stretching forth her arms, she cried:

"Ah God! Ah God! Why hath Thy cold hand set

This doom upon me? Must I ever bear

Death and disaster unto whom I love?

Oh, is it not enough that, 'neath the wave,

Because I sought to bear them company,

My father and my brothers lie in death?

But this--ah God--that it should come to this!

Must I bear ever death within my hands?"

She paused one moment, with wild-heaving breast;

Then, turning unto Oswald, spake again,

With softer voice: "But you--have you no pity?

You who are but God's servant--surely you

Have pity on my weakness. From this doom

Which overhangs me you must set me free.

You say I brought you life; but in me lies

For you--the priest of God--a death more deep

Than all the drowning fathoms of the sea.

I go, that you may live. If life indeed

I brought you, I was but the torch of God

To kindle the clear flame of your strong soul

To burn, a beacon o'er His lonely seas."

She ceased, with arms outstretched and lighted eyes.

As on some holy vision Oswald gazed

In rapt, adoring fear; nor spake, nor stirred.

Near, and yet nearer, drew the plash of oars;

And, turning in the boat, the brethren looked

With wondering eyes upon them, whispering: "Lo,

Some seraph-messenger of God most high

Tarries with Oswald. See the strange new peace

That burns his face like a white altar-flame.

Not yet must we draw near, lest our weak sight

Be blinded by that glory of gold hair

That gleams so strangely in the light of dawn."

The Unknown Knight

When purple gloomed the wintry ridge

Against the sunset's windy flame,

From pine-browed hills, along the bridge,

An unknown rider came.

I watched him idly from the tower.

Though he nor looked nor raised his head;

I felt my life before him cower

In dumb, foreboding dread.

I saw him to the portal win

Unchallenged, and no lackey stirred

To take his bridle when within

He strode without a word.

Through all the house he passed unstayed,

Until he reached my father's door;

The hinge shrieked out like one afraid;

Then silence fell once more.

All night I hear the chafing ice

Float, griding, down the swollen stream;

I lie fast-held in terror's vice,

Nor dare to think or dream.

I only know the unknown knight

Keeps vigil by my father's bed:

Oh, who shall wake to see the light

Flame all the east with red?

The King's Death

The sleeping-chamber of the King: a candle burns dimly by the curtained bed. The arras parts, and two slaves enter with daggers. A storm of wind rages without.

FIRST SLAVE: He sleeps.

SECOND SLAVE: He sleeps, whom only death shall rouse

To dread unsleeping in another world.

FIRST SLAVE: How long the careful night has kept him wakeful,

As if sleep loathed to snare him for our knives!

SECOND SLAVE: Yea, we have crouched so close in quaking dark

I scarce can lift my sword-arm: strike you first.

FIRST SLAVE: The heavy waiting hours have crushed my strength;

The hate that burst to such an eager flame

Within my heart has smouldered to dull ash,

Which pity breathes to scatter.

SECOND SLAVE: Knows he pity?

FIRST SLAVE: Nay, he is throned above his slaughtered kin,

A reeking sword his sceptre. He has broken,

As one across the knee a faggot snaps,

Strong lives to feed the blaze of his ambition;

Yet shall a slave's hand strike cold death in him

For whom kings sweat like slaves?

SECOND SLAVE: Yea, at the stroke

One slave lies dead--a hundred kings are born;

For every man that breathes will be a king;

Vast empires, beaten-dust beneath his feet,

Will rise again and teem with kingly men,

When he, their death, is dead

FIRST SLAVE: How still he sleeps!

The tempest shrieks to wake him, yet he slumbers.

As seas that foam against unyielding scars,

The mad wind storms the castle, wall and tower,

And is not spent. Hark, it has found a breach--

Some latch unloosed--the house is full of wind;

It rushes, wailing, down the corridor;

It seeks the King; it cries on him to waken;

Now 'tis without, and shakes the rattling bolt;

Lo, it has broken in, in little gusts,

I feel it in my hair; 'twill lay cold fingers

Upon his lips, and start him from his sleep.

See, it has whipt the yellow flame to smoke.

SECOND SLAVE: And now it fails; the heavy, hanging gold

That shelters him from night is all unstirred.

FIRST SLAVE: Even the wind must pause.

SECOND SLAVE: 'Twas but a breeze

To blow our sinking courage to clear fire.

Too long we loiter; soon the approaching day

Will take us, slaves who grasp the arms of men

Yet dare not plunge them save in our own breasts.

Come, let us strike!

(They approach the bed and draw aside the curtain.)

FIRST SLAVE: The King--how still he sleeps!

Can majesty in such calm slumber lie?

SECOND SLAVE: Come, falter not, strike home!

FIRST SLAVE: Hold, hold your hand,

For death has stolen a march upon our hate;

He does not breathe.

SECOND SLAVE: The stars have wrought for us,

And we are conquerors with unbloodied hands.

FIRST SLAVE: Nay, nay, for in our thoughts his life was spilt;

While yet our bodies lagged in fettered fear,

Our shafted breath sped on and stabbed his sleep.

Oh, red for all the world, across our brows,

Our murderous thoughts have burned the brand of Cain.

See, through the window stares the pitiless day!

The Knight of the Wood

"I fear the Knight of the Wood," she said

"For him may no man overthrow.

Where boughs are matted thick o'erhead,

There gleams, amid the shadows dread,

The terror of his armour red;

And all men fear him, high and low;

Yet all must through the forest go."

She paused awhile where larches flame

About the borders of the wood;

Then, crying loud on Love's high name

To keep her maiden-heart from shame,

She entered, and full-swiftly came

Where, hooded with a scarlet hood,

A rider in her pathway stood.

She saw the gleam of armour red;

She saw the fiery pennon wave

Its flaming terror overhead

'Mid writhing boughs and shadows dread.

"Ah God," she cried: "that I were dead,

And laid for ever in my grave!"

Then, swooning, called on Love to save.

Among the springing fern she fell,

And very nigh to death she lay;

Till, like the fading of a spell

At ringing of the matin-bell,

The darkness left her; by a well

She waked beneath the open day,

And rose to go upon her way;

When, once again, the ruddy light

Of arms she saw, and turned to flee;

But clutching brambles stayed her flight;

While, marvelling, she saw the Knight

Unhooded; and his eyes were bright

With April colours of the sea;

And crowned as a King was he.

She knelt before him in the ferns,

And sang: "O Lord of Love, I bow

Before thy shield, where blazoned burns

The flaming heart with light that turns

The night to day. O heart that yearns

For love, lo, Love before thee now--

The wild-wood knight with crownèd brow!"

Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière

Above Thy halo's burning blue

For ever hovers the White Dove;

Thy heart enshrines, for ever new,

The Cross--the Crown of all Thy love;

While, sapphire wing on sapphire wing,

About Thee choiring angels swing

Gold censers, and bright candles bear.

Because I have no heart to sing,

I come to Thee with all my care,

Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière.

Because the sword hath pierced Thy side,

Thy brows are crowned with circling gold.

The woe of all the world doth hide

Within Thy mantle's azure fold.

Because Thou, too, hast dwelt with fears,

Through lingering days and endless years,

I find no comfort otherwhere,

Our Lady beautiful with tears,

Our Lady sorrowfully fair,

Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière.

My feet have travelled the hot road

Between the poppies' barren fires;

But now I cast aside the load

Of burning hopes and wild desires

That ever fierce and fiercer grew.

Thy peace falls like a falling dew

Upon me as I kneel in prayer,

Because Thou hast known sorrow, too,

Because Thou, too, hast known despair,

Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière.

In the Valley

Love, take my hand, and look not with sad eyes

Through the valley-shades: for us, the mountains rise;

Beneath the cold, blue-cleaving peaks of snow

Like flame the April-blossomed almonds blow--

Spring-grace and winter-glory intertwined

Within the glittering web that colour weaves.

Yet who are they who troop so close behind

With raiment rustling like frost-withered leaves

That burden winter-winds with ever-restless sighs?

Love, look not back, nor ever hearken more

To murmuring shades; for us, the river-shore

Is lit with dew-hung daffodils that gleam

On either side the tawny, foaming stream

That bears through April with triumphal song

Dissolving winter to the brimming sea.

Yet who are they who, ever-whispering, throng,

With lean, grey lips that shudder piteously,

As if from some bright fruit of bitter-tasting core?

Nay, look not back, for, lo, in trancèd light

Love stays awhile his world-encircling flight

To wait our coming from the valley-ways;

See where, a hovering fire amid the blaze,

He pants aflame with irised plumes unfurled

Above the utmost pinnacle of noon.

Yet who are they who wander through the world

Like weary clouds about a wintry moon,

With wan, bewildered brows that bear eternal night?

Love, look not back, nor fill thy heart with woe

Of old, sad loves that perished long ago;

For ever after living lovers tread

Pale, yearning ghosts of all earth's lovers dead.

A little while with life we lead the train

Ere we, too, follow, cold, some breathing love.

I fear their fevered eyes and hands that strain

To snatch our joy that flutters bright above,

To shadow with grey death its ruddy, pulsing glow.

Love, look not back in this life-crowning hour

When all our love breaks into perfect flower

Beneath the kindling heights of frozen time.

Come, Love, that we with happy haste may climb

Beyond the valley, and may chance to see

Some unknown peak that cleaves unfading skies.

Old sorrow saps my strength; I may not flee

The flame of passionate hunger in their eyes;

Beseeching shade on shade--they hold me in their power.

Love, look not back, for, all too brief, our day,

In wilder glories flameth fast away.

Lo, even now, the northern snow-ridge glows--

With purple shadowed--from pale gold to rose

That shivers white beneath stars dawning cold.

Lift up thine eyes ere all the colour fades.

Ah, rainbow-plumèd Love in airs of gold,

Too late I turn, a shade among the shades.

To follow, death-enthralled, thy flight through ages grey.

The Vision.

A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY.

PERSONS: A YOUNG HERD. HIS MOTHER.

SCENE: THE QUEEN'S CRAGS.

TIME: CHRISTMAS EVE.

The herd stands at the foot of the Crags, gazing across the dark fells. His mother enters.

MOTHER: Son, come home, nor tarry here

In this peril-haunted place.

My old heart is filled with fear

By the white flame of thy face,

And thine eyes whose restless fire

Burneth ever wild and clear

As red peats between the bars.

Son, come home; the night is cold;

Dropping from the wintry stars,

Tingling frost falls through the air;

See, the bents are white with rime;

All the sheep are in the fold;

All the cattle in the byre;

Only we, of live things, roam

O'er the fells so far from home;

E'en the red fox in his lair

Snuggles close to keep him warm;

And the lonely, wandering hare

Crouches, shivering, in her form;

While by Greenlea's frozen edge

Hides the mallard in the sedge.

Son, come home; the ingle-seat

Waits thee by the glowing peat,

And the door is off the latch.

Come, and we will feast and sing,

As of old at Christmas time,

Until thou wilt drowse and nod

And with slumber-drooping head

Gladly seek thy bracken-bed

Underneath the heather-thatch;

Where the healing sleep will bring

Unto thee the peace of God.

Son, come home! Whom seekest thou there?

HERD: Guenevere! O Guenevere!

MOTHER: Cry no more on Guenevere.

Some wild warlock of the fells,

Born beneath the Devil's Scars,

Lures thee forth to drown thy soul

Deep in Broomlea-water cold.

Guenevere no longer dwells

Anywhere beneath the stars;

Though she walked these Crags of old,

Many hundred years ago,

Into earth she sank like snow;

As a sunset-cloud in rain

Breaks, and showers the thirsty plain,

All the glory of her hair

Fell to earth, we know not where.

Leave thy foolish quest forlorn.

Lo, to-night a King is born,

Who, when earthly kings at last

Into wildering night are passed,

Yet shall wear the crown of morn.

Mary, Thou whose love may turn

Eyes that after evil burn,

Draw his soul, that strays so far,

To Thy Son's white throning-star.

Queen of Heaven, hear my prayer!

HERD: Guenevere! O Guenevere!

MOTHER: Low she lies, and may not hear.

The white lily, Guenevere,

Ruthless time has trodden down;

Arthur is a tarnished crown,

High Gawain a broken spear,

Percival a riven shield;

They, who taught the world to yield,

Closed with death and lost the field,

Stricken by the last despair:

Launcelot is but a name

Blown about the winds of shame;

Surely God has quenched the flame

That burned men's souls for Guenevere.

Mary, heed a mother's woe;

Mary, heed a mother's tears!

Thou, whose heart so long ago

Knew the pangs and hopes and fears

We poor mortal mothers know;

Thou, to whom, on Christmas-morn,

Christ, the Son of God, was born;

Thou whose mother-love hath pressed

The sweet Babe against thy breast;

And with wondering joy hath felt

The warm clutch of little hands,

When the Kings from far-off lands--

Crowned with gold, in gold attire--

With the simple shepherds knelt

'Mid the beasts within the byre;

Mary, if Thy heart, afraid,

When beyond Thy care he strayed,

Sometimes grieved that he must grow

Unlike other boys and men--

Filled with dreams beyond Thy ken,

Anguished with diviner woe,

Pangs more fiery than Thy pain,

Deeper than Thy dark despair--

From the perils of the night

Give me back my son again.

Thou, whose love may never fail,

Heed a lonely mother's prayer!

Come in all Thy healing might!

A sudden glory sweeps across the Fells. The vision appears in a cleft of the Crags. The herd and his mother kneel before it.

MOTHER: Mary, Queen of Heaven, hail!

HERD (falling forward): Guenevere! Guenevere!

THE THREE KINGS.

To C. J. S.

The Three Kings

PERSONS: KING GARLAND, KING ARLO, KING ASHALORN.

SEA-VOICES, WAVE-VOICES, AND WIND-VOICES.

SCENE: A rock in the midst of the North Sea,

whereon the three kings, bound naked by conquering

sea-rovers, have been left to perish.

VOICE OF THE DAWN-WIND: Awaken, O sea, from thy starry dream;

Awaken, awaken!

For delight of thy slumber not one pale gleam

From dim star-clusters remaineth unshaken.

All night I have haunted the valleys and rivers;

Now hither I come--

Ere, quickened with sunlight, the drowsy east quivers--

To waken thy song, night-bewildered and dumb;

To stir thy grey waters, of starlight forsaken,

To loosen white foam in the red of the dawn.

WAVE-VOICES: The sound of thy voice

Has broken our sleep;

All night we have waited thee, herald of light.

We arise, we rejoice

At thy bidding to leap,

And spray with our laughter the trail of the night.

All night we have waited thee, weary of stars--

The little star-dreams, and the sleep without song;

The deep-brooding slumber of silence that holds

Our melody mute in the uttermost deep.

O Wind of the Dawn, we have waited thee long;

The sound of thy voice

Has broken our sleep;

We arise, we rejoice

At thy bidding to leap,

With a tumult of singing, a rapture of spray,

To scatter our joy in the path of the day.

GARLAND: Day comes at last, beyond the sea's grey rim;

The young sun leaps in sudden might of gold.

ASHALORN: Before his fire our lives will smoulder dim;

Like stars we shine, we fade; the tale is told,

And all our empty splendour put to scorn;

Fate leaves us, who were clothed in pride, forlorn,

To perish, naked, in this lonely sea.

But yesterday we ruled as kings of earth;

Frail men to-day; to-morrow, who shall be?

ARLO: But yesterday my cup of life was filled

To overflowing with the wine of mirth--

The plashing joy from fruitful years distilled.

GARLAND: But yesterday my kinghood sprang to birth;

My fingers scarce had grasped the might new-born,

When from my clutch the glittering pomp was torn.

SEA-VOICES: They slumber, they slumber, the kings in their pride.

The beak of the Rover is dipt in the tide;

The sails of the Rover are red in the wind;

And white is the trail of the foam flung behind.

They have fallen, have fallen, the kings in their pride;

Their sea-gates are forced by the rush of the tide;

Their splendour is scattered as surf on the wind;

And red is the trail of the terror behind.

Forsaken, forlorn,

On a rock of the sea,

In anguish they bow,

And wait for the night and the darkness to be;

Oh, bright was the gold in their hair;

The sea-weed, in scorn,

Is twined in it now;

Oh, rich was their raiment and rare,

Blue, purple, and gold,

In fold upon fold;

Of glory and majesty shorn,

They are clothed with the wind of despair.

GARLAND: Lo, the live waters run to greet the day:

Even so I laughed to see the soaring light;

My life was poised like yonder curving wave

To break in such bright revel of keen spray.

ARLO: I counted not the years that took their flight,

Gold-crowned and singing; every hour I stood,

As one enchanted in an April wood,

In some new paradise of scent and flowers.

I counted not the countless, careless hours,

The days of rapture and the nights of peace.

How should I dream that such delight could pass,

Such colour fade, such flowing numbers cease,

My glory perish where was none to save,

And all my strength be trodden in the grass?

ASHALORN: Oh, blest art thou who diest in thy youth;

Oh, blest art thou who failest in thy prime;

While yet thine eyes are full of wondering truth;

Ere yet thy feet have found the ways of thorn.

Too long I wandered down the vale of time,

A lonely wind, all songless and forlorn;

For I have found the empty heart of things,

The secret sorrow of the summer rose,

And all the sadness of the April green;

I know that every happy stream that springs

Into a sea of bitter memories flows;

I know the curse that God has set on kings--

The solitary splendour and the crown

Of desolation, and the prisoning state;

The heart that yearns beneath the robe of gold,

The soul that starves behind the golden gate.

I know how chance has reared our earthly thrones

Upon a shifting wrack of whitened bones,

Of heroes fallen in the wars of old--

By wind upbuilded and by wind cast down.

SEA-VOICES: As foam on the edge of the waters of night,

They flicker and fall;

More brief than delight,

More frail than their tears,

They flicker and fall

In the tide of the years;

Awhile they may triumph, as lords of the earth,

With feasting and mirth,

Yet the winds and the waters shall sweep over all.

VOICE OF THE WEST WIND: O wide-shifting wonder of sapphire and gold,

O wandering glory of emerald and white,

From the purple and green of the moorlands I come,

To sweep o'er thy waters with turbulent flight,

To sway thee, and swing thee abroad in my might;

I lean to thy lips, to their white, curling foam,

With laughter and kisses, to smite it to spray;

To thine uttermost deep, unlitten and cold,

I thrill thee with rapture, then wander away.

I have drunk the red wine of the heather, and swept

Over moorland and fell, for mile upon mile.

The little blue loughs were merry, and leapt,

With a shaking of laughter, in dim, dreaming hollows;

The little blue loughs were merry, and flung

Their spray on my wings as above them I swung;

I laughed to their laughter, and dallied awhile;

Then left them to sink in the silence that follows.

In the forest I stirred, like the chant of thy tides,

The song of the boughs and the branches a-swinging;

The ashes and beeches and oak-trees were singing,

Like the noise of thy waters when dark tempest rides.

I swung on the crest of the pine-trees a-swaying,

As now on thy green, flowing surges, O sea;

I piped in my triumph, they danced to my playing;

I left them a-murmur, to hasten to thee.

The white clouds were driven like ships through the air,

And grey flowed the shadows o'er sea-coloured bent,

And dark on the heathland, and dark on the wold:

But here on thy waters, where all things grow fair,

They shadow with purple thine emerald and gold.

My revel unbroken, my rapture unspent,

To thy far-shining wonder, O sea, I have come,

To sweep o'er thy splendour with turbulent flight;

To sway thee, and swing thee abroad in my might;

I lean to thy lips, to their white, curling foam,

With laughter and kisses, to smite it to spray;

To thine uttermost deep, unlitten and cold,

I thrill thee with rapture, then wander away.

GARLAND: There is no sadness in the world but death.

The years that whitened o'er thy head have taken

The colour from thy life, but still in me

The blood beats young and red; yea, still my breath

Is full of freshness as the wind that blows

Across the morning-fells when night has shaken

His cooling dews among the wakening heath.

Yea, now the wind that lashes o'er the sea

Stings all my quivering body to keen life

And whips the blood into my straining limbs;

And all the youth within me springs to fire;

I am consumed with ravening desire

For one brief, wild, delirious hour of strife;

I yearn for every joy that flies or swims,

Rides on the wind or with the water flows.

Yet I must die by patient, slow degrees,

With hourly wasting flesh and parching blood;

Ah God, that I might leap into the flood,

And perish struggling in the adventurous seas!

ARLO: My mouth is filled with saltness, and I thirst

For forest-pools that bubble in the shade,

When loud the hot chase pants through every glade,

And fleeing fawns from every thicket burst;

Or clear wine vintaged when the world was young,

Gurgling from deep-mouthed jars of coloured stone.

ASHALORN: The noonday burns my body to the bone,

And sets a coal of fire upon my tongue,

Between my lips, and stifles all my breath.

Oh come, thou only joy undying, death!

WAVE-VOICES: O wind, that failing, failing, failing, dies,

Beneath the heat of August-laden skies,

Sinking in sleep, sinking in quiet sleep--

Thy blue wings folded o'er our dreaming deep

We too are weary, weary in the noon;

We too will fall in shining slumber soon--

Foamless and still, foamless and very still,

Unstirred, unshaken by thy restless will.

Yet there are eyes that cannot, cannot close,

And strong souls racked by fiery, rending woes--

Never to rest, never to gather rest

By any stream of murmuring waters blest.

But slumber falling, falling, on us lies,

Silent and deep, beneath noon-laden skies,

Silent and deep, silent and very deep,

With blue wings folded o'er our dreaming sleep.

* * * * *

VOICE OF THE EVENING WIND: I have shaken the noon

from my wings, I arise

To quicken the flame in the western skies--

To blow the clouds to a streaming flame,

Where the red sun sinks in the opal sea,

And red as the heart of the opal glows

His last wild gleam in the waters grey.

O grey-green waters, curling to rose,

The kings are glad of the dying day;

The kings are weary; the white mists close--

The white mists gather to cover their shame.

ASHALORN: The evening mist is dank upon my brow,

And cold upon my lips--yea, cold as death;

Yet, through the gloom, she gazes on me now,

As in our early-wedded days; her breath

Is warm once more upon my withered cheek.

O gaunt, grey lips, that strive but may not speak;

O cold, grey eyes, that flicker in the gloam--

Long have we strayed; come, let us wander home!

ARLO: Like lit September woodlands, streameth down

Her hair, beneath the circle of her crown;

Of rarer, redder glory than the cold

Dead metal that for ever strives to hold

The ever-straying wonder of live gold!

Like woodland pools, her eyes, a dreaming brown--

Like woodland pools where autumn-splendours drown!

O red-gold tresses, shaking in the gloam,

Unto your light, unto your shade I come!

GARLAND: Her eyes are azure as the wind-blown sea,

With deep sea-shadowings of grey and green;

And like an April storm her shining hair--

Yea, all the glittering Aprils that have been,

And all the wondering Aprils yet to be,

Have stored their wealth of shower and sunshine there;

Yea, all the thousand, thousand springs of earth

New-lit and re-awakened at her birth,

In her sweet body glow and glimmer fair.

O wonder of sea-colours and white foam

And April glories, to thine arms I come!

VOICE OF THE EVENING WIND: The sun is gone,

and the last, red flame

Has faded away in a shimmer of rose--

A shimmer of rose that shivers to grey.

The kings are glad of the dying day--

The kings are weary; the white mists close,

The white mists gather to cover their shame.

THE SONGS OF QUEEN AVERLAINE.

To M. B.

PERSONS: THE KING,

QUEEN AVERLAINE,

THE KNIGHT ARKELD.

I.
KING AND QUEEN.

The day has come; at last my dream unfolds

White, wondering petals with the rising sun.

No other glade in Love's world-garden holds

So fair a bloom from vanquished winter won.

Long, oh, so long I watched through budding hours,

And, trembling, feared my dream would never wake;

As, one by one, I saw star-tranced flowers

Out on the night their dewy splendour shake.

But with the earliest gleam of dawn it stirred,

Knowing that Love had put the dark to flight;

And I must sing more glad than any bird

Because the sun has filled my dream with light.

Is it high noon, already, in the land?

O Love, I dreamed that morn could never pass;

That we might ever wander, hand in hand,

As children in June-meadows plucking flowers,

Through ever-waking, fresh-unfolding hours:

Yet now we sink love-wearied in the grass;

Yea, it is noon, high noon in all the land.

The young wind slumbers; all the little birds

That sang about us in the fields of morn

Are songless now; no happy flight of words

On Love's lip hovers--Love has waxed to noon.

Ah, God, if Love should wane to evening soon

To perish in a sunless world, forlorn,

And cease with the last song of weary birds!

At dawn I gathered flowers of white,

To garland them for your delight.

At noon I gathered flowers of blue,

To weave them into joy for you.

At eve I gather purple flowers,

To strew above the withered hours.

She knelt at eve beside the stream,

And, sighing, sang: "O waters clear,

Forsaken now of joy and fear,

I come to drown a withered dream.

"Unseen of day, I let it fall

Within the shadow of my hair.

O little dream, that bloomed so fair,

The waters hide you after all!"

"Is it not dawn?" she cried, and raised her head,

"Or hath the sun, grey-shrouded, yesternight,

Gone down with Love for ever to the dead?

When Love has perished, can there yet be light?"

"Yea, it is dawn," one answered: "see the dew

Quivers agleam, and all the east is white;

While in the willow song begins anew."

"When Love has perished, can there yet be light?"

II.
AVERLAINE AND ARKELD.

ARKELD: Oh, why did you lift your eyes to mine?

Oh, why did you lift your drooping head?

AVERLAINE: The tangled threads of the fates entwine

Our hearts that follow as children led.

ARKELD: From the utmost ends of the earth we came,

As star moves starward through wildering night.

AVERLAINE: Our souls have mingled as flame with flame,

Yea, they have mingled as light with light.

ARKELD: Ah God, ah God, that it never had been!

AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow that falls between!

ARKELD: The stars in their courses move through the sky

Unswerving, unheeding, cold and blind.

AVERLAINE: Why did you linger nor pass me by

Where the cross-roads meet in the ways that wind?

ARKELD: I saw your eyes from the dusk of your hair

Flame out with sorrow and yearning love.

AVERLAINE: And I, who wandered with grey despair,

Looking up, saw heaven in blossom above.

ARKELD: Ah God, ah God, that it never had been!

AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow that falls between!

ARKELD: May we not go as we came, alone,

Unto the ends of the earth anew?

AVERLAINE: May we draw afresh from the rose new-blown

The golden sunlight, the crystal dew?

ARKELD: Yea, love between us has bloomed as a rose

Out of the desert under our feet.

AVERLAINE: May we forget how the red heart glows,

Forget that the dew on the petals is sweet?

ARKELD: Ah God, ah God, that it never had been!

AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow that falls between!

ARKELD: Have the ages brought us together that we

Might tremble, start at shadows, and cry?

AVERLAINE: Yea, it has been, and ever will be

Till Sorrow be slain or Love's self die.

ARKELD: Stronger than Sorrow is Love; and Hate,

The brother of Love, shall end our Sorrow.

AVERLAINE: The Shadow is strong with the strength of Fate,

And, slain, would rise from the grave to-morrow.

ARKELD: Ah God, ah God, that it never had been!

AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow for ever between!

AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, and tear with ruthless hands

The golden web wherein, too late, Love strove

To weave us joy and bind us heart to heart.

ARKELD: Yea, we must part, and strew on desert-sands

Petal by petal all the rose of Love,

And part for ever where the cross-ways part.

AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, and never turn our eyes

From strange horizons, desolate and far,

Though Love cry ever: "Turn but once, sad heart!"

ARKELD: Yea, we must part, and under alien skies

Must follow after some cold, gleaming star,

And roam, as north and south winds roam, apart.

AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, ere Love be grown too strong

And we too helpless to resist his might;

While each may go with pure, unshamed heart.

ARKELD: Yea, we must part; and though we do Love wrong,

He will the more subdue us in our flight,

And hold us each more surely his, apart.

III. QUEEN AVERLAINE.

O love, I bade you go; and you have borne

The summer with you from the valley-lands;

The poppy-flame has perished from the corn;

And in the chill, wan light of early morn

The reapers come in doleful, starveling bands,

To bind the blackened sheaves with listless hands;

For rain has put their sowing-toil to scorn.

O Love, I bade you go; and autumn brings

Bleak desolation; yet within my heart

Unquenched and fierce the flame you kindled springs;

For, echoing all day long, the courtyard rings

As loud it rang when, rending Love apart,

Your white horse cantered--swift and keen to start--

Into a world of other queens and kings.

I bade you go; ah, wherefore are you gone?

How could you leave me dark and desolate,

O Sun of Love, that for brief summer shone?

Mine eyes are ever on the western gate,

Half-wishing, half-foredreading your return.

Return, O Love, return!

I cannot live without you; through the dark

I stretch blind hands to you across the world;

All day on unknown battle-fields I mark

Your sword's red course, your banner blue unfurled;

Yet never, in my day-dreams, you return.

Return, O Love, return!

Nay, you are gone: O Love, I bade you go.

I would not have you come again to be

A stranger in this house of silent woe,

Where, being all, you would be naught to me.

Mine, mine in dreams, but lost if you return;

Oh, nevermore return!

"To-day a wandering harper came

With outland tales of deeds of fame;

I hearkened from the noonday bright

Until the failing of the light,

The while he sang of joust and fight;

Yet never once I caught your name.

Oh, whither, whither are you gone,

Whose name victorious ever shone

Above all knights of other lands?

Across what wilderness of sands?

By what dead sea-deserted strands?

On what far quest of Love forlorn?

I loved you when men called you Lord

Arkeld, the never-sleeping sword;

Yet now, when all your might is furled,

And you no longer crest the world,

More are you mine than when you hurled

Destruction on the embattled horde.

Oh, deeper in the silent house

The silence falls;

Only the stir of bat or mouse

About the walls.

No cry, no voice in any room,

No gust of breath;

As if, within the clutch of doom,

We waited death.

The King is dead;

No longer now

The cold eyes gleam

Beneath his brow.

O cold, grey eyes,

Wherein the light

Of Love at dawn

Seemed clear and bright,

No true Love burned

Your cold desire,

Which mirrored but

My own heart's fire.

The King died yesterday.... Ah, no, he died

When young Love perished long, so long ago;

And on his throne, as marble at my side,

Has reigned a carven image, cold as snow,

Though all men bowed before it, crying: "King!"

Too late, too late the chains which held me fall;

Rock-bound, I bade the victor-knight go by;

And now, when time has loosed me from the thrall,

I know not where he tarries, 'neath what sky

He waits the winter's end, the dawn of spring.

Spring comes no more for me: though young March blow

To flame the larches, and from tree to tree

The green fire leap, till all the woodlands glow--

Though every runnel, filled to overflow,

Bear sea-ward, loud and brown with melted snow,

Spring comes no more for me!

Spring comes no more for me: though April light

The flame of gorse above the peacock sea;

Though in an interweaving mesh of white

The seagulls hover 'neath the cliff's sheer height;

Though, hour by hour, new joys are winged for flight,

Spring comes no more for me!

Spring comes no more for me: though May will shake

White flame of hawthorn over all the lea,

Till every thick-set hedge and tangled brake

Puts on fresh flower of beauty for her sake;

Though all the world from winter-sleep awake,

Spring comes no more for me!

I wandered through the city till I came

Within the vast cathedral, cool and dim;

I looked upon the windows all aflame

With blazoned knights and saints and seraphim.

I looked on kings in purple, gold and blue,

On martyrs high before whom all men bow;

Until a gleam of light my footsteps drew

Before a shining seraph, on whose brow

A little flame, for ever pure and white,

Unwavering burns--the symbol of our love;

And as I knelt before him in the night,

He looked, compassionate, on me from above.

I heard a harper 'neath the castle walls

Sing, for night-shelter in the house of thralls,

A song of hapless lovers; in the shade

I paused awhile, unseen of man or maid.

Taking his harp, he touched the moaning strings,

And sang of queens unloved and loveless kings;

His song shot through my fluttering heart like flame

Till, wondering, I heard him breathe your name.

Oh, then I knew how all the deathless wrong

Time wrought of old is but a harper's song;

And all the hopeless sorrow of long years

An idle tale to win a stranger's tears.

Yea, in the song of Love's immortal dead

Our love was told; with shuddering heart I fled,

And strove to pass upon my way unseen,

But song was hushed with whispers: "Lo, the Queen!"

10.

Was it for this we loved, O Time, to be

Among Love's deathless through eternity,

Set high on lone, divided peaks above

The sheltered summer-valley, broad and green?

Was it for this our joy and grief have been,

Our barren day-dreams, dream-deserted nights--

That valley-lovers, looking up, might see

How vain is Love among the starry heights,

And, loving, sigh: "How vain a thing is Love!"?

O Love, that we had found thee in the shade

Where, all day long, the deep, leaf-hidden glade

Hears but the moan of some forsaken dove,

Or the clear song of happy, nameless streams;

Where, all night long, the August moonlight gleams

Through warm, green dusk, no longer cold and white!

O Love, that we had found thee, unafraid,

One summer morn, and followed thee till night,

As unknown valley-lovers follow Love!

11.

I have grown old, awaiting spring's return,

And, now spring comes, I stand like winter grey

In a young world; yet warm within me burn

The morning-fires Love kindled in youth's day.

I have grown old; the young folk look on me

With sighs, and wonder that I once was fair,

And whisper one another: "Is this she?

Did summer ever light that winter hair?

"Ah, she is old; yet, she, too, once was young:

Yea, loved as we love even, for men tell

How bright her beauty burned on every tongue,

And how a knightly stranger loved her well.

"Yet Love grows old that beats so young and warm;

His leaping fires in dust and ashes fail;

Shall we, too, wither in the winter-storm,

And wander thus one April, old and frail?"

Love grows not old, O lovers, though youth die,

And bodily beauty perish as the flower;

Though all things fail, though spring and summer fly,

Love's fire burns quenchless till the last dark hour.

12.

O valley-lovers, think you love,

Being all of joy, knows naught of sorrow?

A day, a night

Of swift delight

That fears no dread, grey-dawning morrow?

O valley-lovers, think you love

Knows only laughter, naught of weeping?

A rose-red fire

Of warm desire

For ever burning, never sleeping?

O lovers, little know ye Love.

Love is a flame that feeds on sorrow--

A lone star bright

Through endless night

That waits a never-dawning morrow.

13.

"Thus would I sing of life,

Ere I must yield my breath:

Though broken in the strife,

I sought not after death.

Though ruthless years have scourged

My soul with sorrow's brands,

And, day by day, have urged

My feet o'er desert-sands;

Yet would I rather tread

Again the bitter trail,

Than lie, calm-browed and pale,

Among the loveless dead.

No pang would I forego,

No stab of suffering,

No agony of woe,

If I to life might cling;

If I might follow still,

For evermore, afar,

O'er barren dale and hill,

My Love's unfading star.

Yea, now, with failing breath,

Thus would I sing of life:

Though broken in the strife,

I sought not after death.

14.

Darkness has come upon me in the end;

Darkness has come upon me like a friend,

Yet undesired; why comest thou, O night,

To seal mine eyes for ever from the light?

Darkness has come upon me; yet a star

Burns through the night and beckons me from far.

Look up, O eyes, unfaltering, without fear;

O morning-star of Love, the dawn is near!

THE GOLDEN HELM.

The Golden Helm

Across his stripling shoulders Geoffrey felt

The knighting-sword fall lightly, and he heard

The King's voice bid him rise; and at the word

He rose, new-flushed with knighthood, swiftly grown

To sudden manhood, though, but now, he knelt

A vigil-wearied squire before the throne.

He paused one moment while the people turned

To look on him with eyes that kindled bright,

Seeing his face aglow with strange, new light;

Yet them he saw not where they watched amazed,

And, though like azure flames Queen Hild's eyes burned,

Beyond the shadow of the throne he gazed

To where, in kindred rapture, young Christine

Stood, tremulous and white, in wind-flower grace--

Beneath her thick, dark hair, her happy face

Pale-gleaming 'midst the ruddy maiden-throng;

But, following Geoffrey's eyes, the trembling Queen

Now bade the harpers rouse the air with song:

From pulsing throat and silver-throbbing string

The music soared, light-winged, and, fluttering, fell;

When, startled as one waking from a spell,

Geoffrey stepped back among the waiting knights;

While knelt another squire before the King.

In Queen Hild's eyes yet hovered stormy lights,

Beneath her glooming brows, as waters gleam

Under snow-laden skies; the summer day

For her in that brief glance had shivered grey,

Empty of light and song. She only heard

The King and knights as people of a dream;

Yet keenly Geoffrey's lightest, laughing word

Stung to the quick, and stabbed her quivering life,

Till from each shuddering wound the red joy flowed;

And, though a ruddy fire on each cheek glowed,

She felt her drainèd heart within her cold;

Then all at once a hot thought stirred new strife

Within her breast, and suddenly grown old

And wise in treacherous imagining,

She pressed her thin lips to a bitter smile,

And strove with laughing mask to hide the guile

That, slowly welling, through her body poured

Cold-blooded life that feels no arrowy sting

Of joy or hope, nor thrust of pity's sword.

To Christine, where she yet enraptured stood,

Hild, turning, spake kind words, and coldly praised

The new-made knight. Each word Christine amazed

Drank in with joyous heart and eager ears;

To her it seemed ne'er lived a Queen so good;

And love's swift rapture filled her eyes with tears.

For her true heart, the day-long pageant moved

Round Geoffrey's shining presence; king and knight

But shone for her with pale, reflected light.

As trancèd planets circling round the sun,

About the radiant head of her beloved

The dim throngs moved until the day was done.

When lucent gold suffused the cloudless west,

And lingering thrush-notes failed in drowsy song,

She left, at last, the weary maiden-throng,

To stray alone through dew-hung garden-glades;

And all the love unsealed within her breast

Flowed out from her to light the darkest shades.

Her quivering maiden-body could not hold

The sudden welling of love's loosened flood;

Through all her limbs it gushed, and in her blood

It stormed each throbbing pulse with blissful ache;

It seemed to spray the utmost glooms with gold,

And scatter glistening dews in every brake.

While yet she moved in rapture unafraid

Among the lilies, down the Grey Nun's Walk,

She heard behind the snapping of a stalk,

And stayed transfixed, nor dared to turn her head,

But stood a solitary, trembling maid--

Forlorn and frail, with all her courage fled.

Thus Geoffrey found her as, hot-foot, he pressed

To pour about her all the glowing tide

Day-pent within his heart; the flood-gates wide,

His love swept over her, sea after sea,

Until life almost swooned within her breast,

And she seemed like to drown in ecstasy.

Yet, as the tempest sank in calm at last,

She rose from out the foam of love, new-born--

As Venus from the irised surf of morn--

To such triumphant beauty, Geoffrey, thralled,

Before her stood in wonder rooted fast;

Even his love within him bowed appalled

In tongueless worship as he gazed on her;

While, lily-like, the trancèd flowers among,

She stood, love-radiant, and above her hung

The canopy of star-enkindling night;

Though, when again she moved with joyous stir,

He sprang to her in love's unchallenged might.

II.

All night, beside her slumbering lord, the Queen

Tossed sleepless--every aching sense astrain

With tingling wakefulness that racked like pain

Her weary limbs; all night, in wide-eyed dread,

She watched the slow hours moving dark between

The glimmering window and the curtained bed.

The fitful calling of the owl, all night,

Struck like the voice of terror on her ears;

With brushing wings, about her taloned fears

Fluttered till dawn: when, as the summer gloom,

Grey-quivering, spilt in silver-showering light,

She rose and stood within the dawning room,

Shivering and pale--her long, unbraided hair

Each moment quickening to a livelier gold

About her snowy shoulders; yet, more cold

Than the still gleam of winter-frozen meres,

Her blue eyes shone with strange, unseeing stare,

As though they sought to pierce some mist of fears;

And, when she turned, the old familiar things

Unknown and alien seemed to her sight--

Outworn and faded in the morning light

The rose-embroidered tapestries, and frail

The painted Love that hung on irised wings

Above the sleeping King. Dark-browed and pale

She looked upon her lord, and fresh despair

With dreadful calm through all her being stole,

And froze with icy breath the flickering soul

That strove within her. Evil courage steeled

Her heart once more, as, combing back her hair,

She watched the waking world of wood and field:

Hay-harvesters with long scythes flashing white;

The dewy-browsing deer; the blue smoke-curl

Above some woodland hut; a kerchiefed girl

Driving the kine afield with loitering pace.

But, as a youthful rider came in sight,

She from the casement turned with darkening face,

And looked not out again, and fiercely pressed

Her white teeth in her quivering underlip,

To stifle the wild cry that strove to slip

From her strained throat; with clutching hands she sought

To stay the throbbing tumult of her breast

That fluttered like a bird in meshes caught.

Christine as yet in dreamless slumber lay

Within her turret-chamber; but a bird

Within the laurel singing softly stirred

Her eyes to wakeful life, and from her bed

She rose and stood within the light of day,

White-faced and wondering, with lifted head.

As April-butterflies, new-winged for flight,

That poise awhile in quivering amaze,

Ere they may dare the unknown, glittering ways

Of perilous airs--upon the brink of morn

She paused one moment in the showering light,

In radiant ecstasy of youth forlorn.

Then swift remembrance flushed her virgin snow,

And wakened in her eyes the living fire;

With joyous haste she drew her bright attire

About her trembling limbs, with eager hands,

Veiling her maiden beauty's morning glow,

Before she looked abroad on meadowlands,

Where Geoffrey rode at dawn. Across the blaze

Of dandelions silvering to seed,

She saw his white horse swing with easy speed;

He rode with head exultant in the breeze

That lifted his brown hair. With lingering gaze

She watched him vanish down an aisle of trees;

Then, swiftly gathering her dark hair in braids

Above her slender neck, she crossed the floor

With noiseless step, unlatched the creaking door,

And stole in trembling silence down the stair,

Intent to reach the garden ere the maids

Should come with chattering tongues and laughter there;

When by her side she heard a rustling stir:

The arras parted, and before her stood

Queen Hild in proud, imperious womanhood,

Looking upon her with cold, smiling eyes.

In startled wonder Christine glanced at her.

Then spake the Queen: "Do maids thus early rise

To tend their household duties, or to feed

The doves, relinquishing sleep's precious hours

To see the morning dew upon the flowers

And what frail blooms have perished 'neath the moon?

To reach the Grey Nun's Walk, mayhap you speed--

To count the stricken buds of lilies strewn

O'ernight upon the soil by careless feet

That wandered there so late? Yea, now I know,

Christine, because you flush and tremble so.

Yet look you not on me with eyes that burn;

I would not stay you when you go to greet

The rider of the dawn on his return.

Think you I leave my bed at break of day--

I, Hild the Queen--to thwart a lover's kiss?

Think you my love of you could stoop to this,

Though you would wed a fledgling, deedless Knight?

Nay, shrink you not from me, turn not away;

Because my heart has never known love's light,

I fain would hear your happy tale of love,

That I may prosper you and your fair youth.

Will you not trust me?" Blind with love's glad truth,

Christine sank down within Hild's outstretched arms.

Speechless, awhile, with sobbing breath she strove;

Then poured out all the tale of love's alarms,

Raptures, despairs, and deathless ecstasies,

In one quick torrent from her brimming heart;

Then, quaking, ceased, and drew herself apart,

Dismayed that she so easily had revealed

To this white, cold-eyed Queen love's sanctities.

Yet Hild moved not, but stood, with hard lips sealed,

Until, the chiming of the turret-bell

Recalling her, she spake with far-off voice:

"I, loveless, in your innocent love rejoice.

May nothing stem its eager raptured course!

Oh, that my barren heart could love so well,

And feel the surge of love's subduing force!

Yet even I from out my dearth may give

To you, Christine. Would you that Geoffrey's name

Shall shine, unchallenged, on the lists of fame?

If you would have him win for you the crown

Of knightly immortality, and live

Triumphant on men's tongues in high renown,

Follow me now." With cold, exulting eyes

She raised the arras, opening to the light

An unknown stair-way clambering into night.

Within the caverned wall she swiftly passed.

Christine for one brief moment in surprise

Uncertain paused; then, wondering, followed fast.

The falling arras shutting out the day,

She stumbled blindly through the soaring gloom--

Enclosing dank and chilly as the tomb

Her panting life; and unto her it seemed

That ever, as she climbed, more sheer the way

Before her rose, and ever fainter gleamed

The wan, white star of light that overhead

Hovered remote. Far up the stair she heard

A silken rustling as, without a word,

Relentlessly Queen Hild before her sped

For ever up the ever-soaring steep.

But when it almost seemed that she must fall--

So loudly in her ears the pulses beat,

And each step seemed to sink beneath her feet--

She heard the shrilly grating of a key,

And saw, above her, in the unseen wall,

A dazzling square of day break suddenly.

Within the lighted doorway Queen Hild turned

To reach a helping hand, and, as she bent

To clutch the swooning maiden, well-nigh spent,

And drew her to the chamber, weak and faint,

Through her gold hair so rare a lustre burned,

It seemed to Christine that an aureoled saint

Leaned out from heaven to snatch her from the deep.

Then, dizzily, she sank upon the floor,

Dreaming that toil was over evermore,

And she secure in Love's celestial fold;

Till, waking gradually as from a sleep,

Her dark eyes opened on a blaze of gold.

She sat within a chamber hung around

With glistering tapestry, whereon a knight,

Who bore a golden helm above the fight,

For ever triumphed o'er assailing swords,

Or led the greenwood chase with horse and hound,

While far behind him lagged the dames and lords

And all the hunting train; till he, at length,

Brought low the antlered quarry on the brink

Of some deep, craggy cleft, wherefrom did shrink

The quailing hounds with lathered flanks aquake.

As Christine looked on them, her maiden-strength

Returned to her; and now, more broad awake,

She saw, within the centre of the room,

A golden table whereon glittered bright

A casket of wrought gold, and, in the light,

Queen Hild, awaiting her, with smiling lips,

And laughing words: "Is this then love's sad doom,

To perish, fainting, in light's brief eclipse

Between a curtain and a closed door?

Shall this bright casket ever hold, unsought,

The golden helm--in elfin-ages wrought

For some star-destined knight--because love's heart

Grows faint within her? Shall the world no more

Acclaim its helmèd lord?" But, with a start,

Christine arose, and swiftly forward came

With eager eyes, and stooped with fluttering breast--

Her slender, shapely hands together pressed

In tense expectancy, and all her face

With quivering light of wondering love aflame.

The Queen bent down, and in a breathing space

Unlocked the casket with a golden key,

And deftly loosed a little golden pin;

The heavy lid swung open and, within,

To Christine's eyes revealed the golden helm.

Then spake Queen Hild, once more: "Your love-gift see!

Think you that any smith in all the realm

Can beat dull metal to so fair a casque?

In jewelled caverns of enchantment old

This helm was wrought of magic-tempered gold

To yieldless strength, by elfin-hammers chased,

That toiled unwearied at their age-long task,

And over it an unknown legend traced

In letters of some world-forgotten tongue.

At noon, with careful footing, down the stair

Unto the hall the casket you must bear,

When King and knight are gathered round the board,

And, ere the tales be told or songs be sung,

Acclaim your love the golden-helmed lord."

Christine, awhile, in speechless wonderment,

Hung o'er the glistering helm, and silence fell

Within the arrased chamber like a spell;

While softly, on some distant, sunlit roof,

The basking pigeons cooed with deep content;

Till, far below, a sudden-clanging hoof

Startled the morn. The women's lifted eyes

One moment met in kindred ecstasy;

Then Hild, with hopeless shudder, shaking free,

With strained voice spake: "Why do you longer wait?

Your love returns; shall he, in sad surprise,

Find no glad face to greet him at the gate?"

III.

As some new jest was tossed from tongue to tongue,

Light laughter rippled round the midday board,

Beneath the bannered rafters: dame and lord

And maid and squire with merry chattering

Sat feasting; though no motley humour wrung

A smile from Hild, where she, beside the King,

Watched pale and still. She saw on Geoffrey's face

Grave wonder that he caught not anywhere

Among the maids the dusk of Christine's hair,

Or sunlight of her glance. His eyes, between

The curtained doorway and her empty place,

Kept eager, anxious vigil for Christine.

But when, at last, the lingering meal nigh o'er,

The waking harp-notes trembled through the hush,

Like the light, fitful prelude of the thrush

Ere his full song enchant the domèd elm;

The arras parting, through the open door

She came. Before her borne, the golden helm

Within the dim-lit hall shone out so bright,

That lord and dame in rustling wonder rose,

And squire and maiden sought to gather close,

With questioning lips, about the love-bright maid.

Christine, unheeding, turned nor left nor right;

With lifted head and eager step unstayed,

She strode to Geoffrey, while he stood alone,

Radiant with wondering love--as one who sees

The light of high, eternal mysteries

Illume awhile the mortal shade that moves

From out oblivion unto night unknown,

Hugging a little grace of joys and loves.

Before him now she came and, kneeling, spake,

With slow, clear-welling voice: "In ages old

This helm was wrought from elfin-hammered gold,

For one who, in the after-days, should be

Supreme above his kind, as, in the brake

Of branching fern, the solitary tree

That crests the fell-top. Unto you I bring

The gift of destiny, that, as the sun

New-risen of your knighthood, newly-won,

The wondering world may see its glory shine."

As Christine spake, with questioning glance the King

Turned to the Queen, who gave no answering sign.

Then, stretching forth his arm, he cried: "Sir knight,

I know not by what evil chance this maid

Has climbed the secret newell-stair unstayed

And reached the casket-chamber, and has borne

From thence the Helm of Strife, whereon the light

Of day has never fallen, night or morn,

For seven hundred years; but, ere you take

The doomful gift, know this: he who shall dare

To don the golden helm must ever fare

Upon the edge of peril, ever ride

Between dark-ambushed dangers, ever wake

Unto the thunderous crash of battle-tide.

Oh, pause before you take the fateful helm.

Will you, so young, forego, for evermore,

The sheltered haven-raptures of the shore,

To strive in ceaseless tempest, till, at last,

The fury-crested wave shall overwhelm

Your broken life on death's dark crag upcast?"

He ceased, and stood with eyes of hot appeal;

An aching silence shuddered through the hall;

None stirred nor spake, though, swaying like to fall,

Christine, in mute, imploring agony,

Wavered nigh death. As glittering points of steel

Queen Hild's eyes gleamed in bitter victory.

But all were turned to Geoffrey, where he stood

In pillared might of manhood, very fair;

His face a little paled beneath his hair,

Though bright his eyes with all the light of day.

At length he spake: "For evil or for good,

I take the Helm of Strife; let come what may."

IV.

Dawn shivered coldly through the meadowlands;

The ever-trembling aspens by the stream

Quivered with chilly light and fitful gleam;

Ruffling the heavy foliage of the plane,

Until the leaves turned, like pale, lifted hands,

A cold gust stirred with presage of near rain.

Coldly the light on Geoffrey's hauberk fell;

But yet more cold on Christine's heart there lay

The winter-clutch of grief, as, far away,

She saw him ride, and in the stirrup rise

And, turning, wave to her a last farewell.

Beyond the ridge he vanished, and her eyes

Caught the far flashing of the helm of gold

One moment as it glanced with mocking light;

Then naught but tossing pine-trees filled her sight.

Yet darker gloomed the woodlands 'neath the drench

Of pillared showers; colder and yet more cold

Her heart had shuddered since the last, hot wrench

Of parting overnight. Though still her mouth

Felt the mute impress of love's sacred seal;

Though still through all her senses seemed to steal

The heavy fume of wound-wort that had hung

All night about the hedgerows--parched with drouth;

Though the first notes the missel-cock had sung,

Ere darkness fled, resounded in her ears;

Yet no hot tempest of tumultuous woe

Shook her young body. As night-fallen snow

Burdens with numb despair young April's green,

Her sorrow lay upon her; hopes and fears

Within her slept. As something vaguely seen

Nor realised--since yesterday's dread noon

Had shattered all love's triumph--life had passed

About her like a dream by doom o'ercast.

Long hours she sat, with silent, folded hands,

And face that glimmered like a winter moon

In cloudy hair. Across the rain-grey lands

She gazed with eyes unseeing; till she heard

A step within her chamber, and her name

Fell dully on her ear; then like a flame

Sharp anguish shot through every aching limb

With keen remembrance. Suddenly she stirred,

And, turning, looked on Hild. "Grieve you for him..."

The Queen began; then, with a little gasp,

Her voice failed, and she shrank before the gaze

Of Christine's eyes, and, shrivelled by the blaze

Of fires her hand had kindled, all her pride

Fell shredded, and not even the gold clasp

Of queenhood held, her naked deed to hide.

She quailed, and, turning, fled from out the room.

Soon Christine's wrath was drowned in whelming grief,

And in the fall of tears she found relief--

As brooding skies in sweet release of rain.

All day she wept, until, at length, the gloom

Of eve laid soothing hands upon her pain.

Then, once again, she rose, calm-browed, and sped

Downstairs with silent step, and reached, unstayed,

The Grey Nun's Walk, where all alone a maid

Drank in the rain-cooled air. With low-breathed words,

They whispered long together, while, o'erhead,

From rain-wet branches rang the song of birds.

The maiden often paused as in alarm;

Then, with uncertain, half-delaying pace,

She left Christine, returning in a space

With Philip, Christine's brother, a young squire,

Who strode by her with careless, swinging arm

And eager face, with keen, blue eyes afire.

Then all three stood, with whispering heads bent low,

In eager converse clustered; till, at last,

They parted, and, with high hopes beating fast,

Christine unto her turret-room returned--

Her dark eyes bright and all her face aglow,

As if some new-lit rapture in her burned.

About her little chamber swift she moved,

Until, at length, in travelling array,

She paused to rest, and all-impatient lay

Upon her snow-white bed, and watched the light

Fail from the lilied arras that she loved

Because her hand had wrought each petal white

And slender, emerald stem. The falling night

Was lit for her with many a memory

Of little things she could no longer see,

That had been with her in old, happy hours,

Before her girlish joys had taken flight

As morning dews from noon-unfolding flowers.

For her, with laggard pace the minutes trailed,

Till night seemed to eternity outdrawn.

At last, an hour before the summer-dawn,

She rose and once again, with noiseless tread,

Crept down the stair, grey-cloaked and closely veiled,

While every shadow struck her cold with dread

Lest, drawing back the arras, Hild should stand

With mocking smile before her; but, unstayed,

She reached the stair-foot, and, no more afraid,

She sought a low and shadow-hidden door,

Slid back the silent bolts with eager hand,

And stepped into the garden dim once more.

She quickly crossed a dewy-plashing lawn,

And, passing through a little wicket-gate,

She reached the road. Not long had she to wait

Ere, with two bridled horses, Philip came.

Silent they mounted; far they fared ere dawn

Burnished the castle-weathercock to flame.

Northward they climbed from out the valley mist;

Northward they crossed the sun-enchanted fells;

Northward they plunged down deep, fern-hidden dells;

And northward yet--until the sapphire noon

Had burned and glowed to thunderous amethyst

Of evening skies about an opal moon;

Northward they followed fast the loud-tongued fame

Of young Sir Geoffrey of the golden helm;

Until it seemed that storm must overwhelm

Their weary flight. They sought a lodging-place,

And soon upon a lonely cell they came

Wherein a hermit laboured after grace.

On beds of withered bracken, soft and warm,

He housed them, and himself, all night, alone,

Knelt in long vigil on the aching stone,

Within his little chapel, though, all night,

His prayers were drowned by thunders of the storm,

And all about him flashed blue, pulsing light.

Christine in calm, undreaming slumber lay,

Nor stirred till, clear and glittering, the morn

Sang through the forest; though, with roots uptorn,

The mightiest-limbed and highest-soaring oak

Had fallen charred, with green leaves shrivelled grey.

At tinkling of the matin-bell she woke,

And soon with Philip left the woodland boughs

For barer uplands. Over tawny bent

And purpling heath they rode till day was spent;

When, down within a broad, green-dusking dale,

They sought the shelter of the holy house

Of God's White Sisters of the Virgin's Veil.

So, day by day, they ever northward pressed,

Until they left the lands of peace behind,

And rode among the border-hills, where blind

Insatiate warfare ever rages fierce;

Where night-winds ever fan a fiery crest,

And dawn's light breaks on bright, embattled spears:

A land whose barren hills are helmed with towers;

A lone, grey land of battle-wasted shires;

A land of blackened barns and empty byres;

A land of rock-bound holds and robber-hordes,

Of slumberous noons and wakeful midnight hours,

Of ambushed dark and moonlight flashing swords.

With hand on hilt and ever-kindling eyes,

Flushed face and quivering nostril, Philip rode;

But nought assailed them; every lone abode

Forsaken seemed; all empty lay the land

Beneath the empty sky; only the cries

Of plovers pierced the blue on either hand;

Until, at sudden cresting of a hill,

The clang of battle sounded on their ears,

And, far below, they saw a surge of spears

Crash on unyielding ranks; while, from the sea

Of striving steel, with deathly singing shrill,

A spray of arrows flickered fitfully.

Amazed they stood, wide-eyed, with holden breath;

When, of a sudden, flashed upon their sight

The golden helm in midmost of the fight,

Where, with high-lifted head and undismayed,

Sir Geoffrey rode, a very lord of death,

With ever-leaping, ever-crashing blade.

Christine watched long, now cold with quaking dread,

Now hot with hope as each assailant fell;

The bright sword held her gaze as by a spell;

Because love blinded her to all but love,

Unmoved she watched the foemen shudder dead,

She whose heart erst the meanest woe could move.

Then, dazed, she saw a solitary shaft,

Unloosed with certain aim from out the bow,

Strike clean through Geoffrey's hauberk, and bring low

The golden helm, while o'er him swiftly met

The tides of fight. Christine a little laughed

With rattling throat, and stood with still eyes set.

Scarce Philip dared to raise his eyes to hers

To see the terror there. No word she spake,

But leaned a little forward through the brake

That bloomed about her in a golden blaze;

Her hands were torn to bleeding by the furze,

Yet nothing could disturb that dreadful gaze.

Then, gradually, the heaving battle swerved

To northward, faltering broken, and afar

It closed again, where, round a jutting scar,

The flashing torrent of the river curved.

With eager step Christine ran down the hill,

And sped across the late-forsaken field

To where, with shattered sword and splintered shield,

Among the mounded bodies Geoffrey lay.

She loosed his helm, but deathly pale and still

His young face gleamed within the light of day.

Christine beside him knelt, as Philip sought

A draught of water from the peat-born stream;

When, in his eyes, at last, a fitful gleam

Flickered, and bending low, with straining ears,

The laboured breathing of her name she caught;

And over his dead face fell fast her tears.

Once more towards them the tide of battle swept;

Christine moved not. Young Philip on her cried,

And strove, in vain, to draw her safe aside.

A random shaft in her unshielded breast--

Though hot to stay its course her brother leapt--

Struck quivering, and she slowly sank to rest.

VI.

Queen Hild sat weaving in her garden-close,

When on her startled ear there fell the news

Of Christine's flight before the darkling dews

Had thrilled with dawn. A strand of golden thread

Slipped from her trembling fingers as she rose

And hastened to the castle with drooped head.

All morn she paced within her blinded room,

Unresting, to and fro, her white hands clenched;

All morn within her tearless eyes, unquenched,

Blue fires of anger smouldered, yet no moan

Escaped her lips. Without, in summer bloom,

The garden murmured with bliss-burdened drone

Of hover-flies and lily-charmed bees;

Sometimes a finch lit on the window-ledge,

With shrilly pipe, or, from the rose-hung hedge,

A blackbird fluted; yet she neither heard

Nor heeded aught; until, by rich degrees,

Drowsed into noon the noise of bee and bird.

Yea, even when, without her chamber, stayed

A doubtful step, and timid fingers knocked,

She answered not, but, swiftly striding, locked

Yet more secure, with angry-clicking key,

The bolted door, and the affrighted maid

Unto the waiting hall fled, fearfully.

Wearied at last, upon her bed Queen Hild

In fitful slumber sank; but evil dreams

Of battle-stricken lands and blood-red streams

Swirled through her brain. Then, suddenly, she woke,

Wide-eyed, and sat upright, with body chilled,

Though in her throat the hot air seemed to choke.

Swiftly she rose; then, binding her loosed hair,

She bathed her throbbing brows, and, cold and calm,

Downstairs she glided, while the evening-psalm

In maiden-voices quavered, faint and sweet,

And from the chapel-tower, through quivering air,

The bell's clear silver-tinkling clove the heat.

She strode into the hall where yet the King

Sat with his knights; a weary minstrel stirred

Cool, throbbing wood-notes, throated like a bird,

From his soft-stringèd lute. With scornful eyes

Hild looked on them and spake: "Can nothing sting

Your slumberous hearts from slothful peace to rise?

Must only stripling-knights and maidens ride

To battle, where, unceasing, foemen wage

War on your marches, and your wardens rage

In impotent despair with desperate swords,

While you, O King, with sheathèd arms abide?"

She paused, and, wondering, the King and lords

Looked on her mutely; then, again, she spake:

"Shall I, then, and my maidens sally forth

With battle-brands to conquer the wild north?

Yea, I will go! Who follows after me?"

As by a blow struck suddenly awake,

The King leapt up, and, like a clamorous sea,

The knights about him. Scornfully the Queen

Looked on them: "So my woman's words have roused

The hands that slumbered and the hearts that drowsed.

Make ready then for battle; ere seven days

Have passed, the dawn must light your armour's sheen,

And in the sun your pennoned lances blaze."

Her voice ceased; and a pulsing flame of light

Flashed through the hall; in crashing thunder broke

The heavy, hanging heat; the rafters woke

In echo as the rainy torrent poured;

Bright gleamed the rapid lightning; yet more bright

The war-lust kindled hot in every lord.

To clang of armour the seventh morning stirred

From slumber; restless hoof and champing bit

Aroused the garth; and day, arising, lit

A hundred lances, as, each bolt withdrawn,

The courtyard-gate swung wide with noise far-heard,

And flickering pennons rode into the dawn--

Before his knights, the King, and at his side,

Queen Hild, with ever-northward-gazing eyes;

But, ere they far had fared, in mute surprise

They stayed and all drew rein, as down the road

They saw a little band of warriors ride--

Sore travel-stained--who bore a heavy load

Upon a branch-hung litter; while before

Came Philip, bearing a war-broken lance.

Though King and lords looked, wondering, in a glance

Queen Hild had read the sorrow of his face

And pierced the leaf-hid secret--which e'ermore

A brand of fire upon her heart would trace.

Darkness about her swirled, but, with a fierce

Wild, conquering shudder, shaking herself free,

Unto the light she clung, though like a sea

It surged and eddied round her; yet so still

She sat, none knew her steely eyes could pierce

The leafy screen. With guilty terror chill,

She heard the king speak--sadly riding forth:

"Whence come you, Philip, battle-stained and slow?

What burden bear you with such brows of woe?"

Then Philip answered, mournfully: "I bring

Two wanderers home from out the perilous north.

Prepare to gaze on death's defeat, O King."

They lowered the litter slowly to the ground;

Back fell the branches; in the light of day,

In calm, white sleep Christine and Geoffrey lay,

And at their feet the baleful Helm of Strife

Sword-cloven. Hushed stood all the knights around,

When spake the King, alighting: "Come, O wife,

And let us twain, with humble heads low-bowed,

Even at the feet of love triumphant stand,

A little while together, hand in hand."

The Queen obeyed; but, fearfully, she shrank

Before the eyes of death, and, quaking, cowed,

With moaning cry, low in the dust she sank.

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