human
Can you write a poem for me in the style of John O'Keeffe?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem in the style of John O'Keeffe:
  broad-headed, plodding, able German who wrote and spoke English
There's a fluffy-haired German called Huffer
A loud and pragmatical duffer:
To stand on a tower
And shout "Schopenhauer"
Is reckoned his mission by Huffer.
kind,--as this, when M. got alarmed about his increasing bulk:--
There was a young person called Topsy
Who fancied he suffered from dropsy;
He shook like a jelly,
Till the Doctor cried "Belly!"--
Which angered; but comforted Topsy.
_This Collection is published with copyright for Continental
Edited with a Memoir by Francis Hueffer.
The Right of Translation is reserved.
like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken.
pleasure. Sailing west they come to a fair country. They gaze on
Teuto-Scandinavian race long before the Norsemen set foot on the
Then he set the ring on her finger, and once if ne'er again
The subsequent events are the outgrowth of the tragic guilt thus
Nor yet come home in the even, too faint and weary to stand,
For that which the worker winneth shall then be his indeed,
Nor shall half be reaped for nothing by him that sowed no seed.
Riding together
The golden Apples
But, knowing now that they would have her speak,
She threw her wet hair backward from her brow,
Her hand close to her mouth touching her cheek,
As though she had had there a shameful blow,
And feeling it shameful to feel ought but shame,
All through her heart, yet felt her cheek burned so,
She must a little touch it; like one lame
She walked away from Gauwaine, with her head
Still lifted up; and on her cheek of flame
The tears dried quick; she stopped at last and said:
"O knights and lords, it seems but little skill
To talk of well-known things past now and dead.
"God wot I ought to say, I have done ill,
And pray you all forgiveness heartily!
Because you must be right such great lords--still
"Listen, suppose your time were come to die,
And you were quite alone and very weak;
Yea, laid a dying while very mightily
"The wind was ruffling up the narrow streak
Of river through your broad lands running well:
Suppose a hush should come, then some one speak:
"'One of these cloths is heaven, and one is hell,
Now choose one cloth for ever, which they be,
I will not tell you, you must somehow tell
"'Of your own strength and mightiness; here, see!'
Yea, yea, my lord, and you to ope your eyes,
At foot of your familiar bed to see
"A great God's angel standing, with such dyes,
Not known on earth, on his great wings, and hands,
Held out two ways, light from the inner skies
"Showing him well, and making his commands
Seem to be God's commands, moreover, too,
Holding within his hands the cloths on wands;
"And one of these strange choosing cloths was blue,
Wavy and long, and one cut short and red;
No man could tell the better of the two.
"'After a shivering half-hour you said,
'God help! heaven's colour, the blue;' and he said, 'hell.'
Perhaps you then would roll upon your bed,
"And cry to all good men that loved you well,
'Ah Christ! if only I had known, known, known;'
Launcelot went away, then I could tell,
"Like wisest man how all things would be, moan,
And roll and hurt myself, and long to die,
And yet fear much to die for what was sown.
"Nevertheless you, O Sir Gauwaine, lie,
Whatever may have happened through these years,
God knows I speak truth, saying that you lie."
Her voice was low at first, being full of tears,
But as it cleared, it grew full loud and shrill,
Growing a windy shriek in all men's ears,
A ringing in their startled brains, until
She said that Gauwaine lied, then her voice sunk,
And her great eyes began again to fill,
Though still she stood right up, and never shrunk,
But spoke on bravely, glorious lady fair!
Whatever tears her full lips may have drunk,
She stood, and seemed to think, and wrung her hair,
Spoke out at last with no more trace of shame,
With passionate twisting of her body there:
"It chanced upon a day Launcelot came
To dwell at Arthur's Court; at Christmas-time
This happened; when the heralds sung his name,
"'Son of King Ban of Benwick,' seemed to chime
Along with all the bells that rang that day,
O'er the white roofs, with little change of rhyme.
"Christmas and whitened winter passed away,
And over me the April sunshine came,
Made very awful with black hail-clouds, yea
"And in the Summer I grew white with flame,
And bowed my head down--Autumn, and the sick
Sure knowledge things would never be the same,
"However often Spring might be most thick
Of blossoms and buds, smote on me, and I grew
Careless of most things, let the clock tick, tick,
"To my unhappy pulse, that beat right through
My eager body; while I laughed out loud,
And let my lips curl up at false or true,
"Seemed cold and shallow without any cloud.
Behold my judges, then the cloths were brought:
While I was dizzied thus, old thoughts would crowd,
"Belonging to the time ere I was bought
By Arthur's great name and his little love,
Must I give up for ever then, I thought,
"That which I deemed would ever round me move
Glorifying all things; for a little word,
Scarce ever meant at all, must I now prove
"Stone-cold for ever? Pray you, does the Lord
Will that all folks should be quite happy and good?
I love God now a little, if this cord
"Were broken, once for all what striving could
Make me love anything in earth or heaven.
So day by day it grew, as if one should
"Slip slowly down some path worn smooth and even,
Down to a cool sea on a summer day;
Yet still in slipping there was some small leaven
"Of stretched hands catching small stones by the way,
Until one surely reached the sea at last,
And felt strange new joy as the worn head lay
"Back, with the hair like sea-weed; yea all past
Sweat of the forehead, dryness of the lips,
Washed utterly out by the dear waves o'ercast,
"In the lone sea, far off from any ships!
Do I not know now of a day in Spring?
No minute of that wild day ever slips
"From out my memory; I hear thrushes sing,
And wheresoever I may be, straightway
Thoughts of it all come up with most fresh sting:
"I was half mad with beauty on that day,
And went without my ladies all alone,
In a quiet garden walled round every way;
"I was right joyful of that wall of stone,
That shut the flowers and trees up with the sky,
And trebled all the beauty: to the bone,
"Yea right through to my heart, grown very shy
With weary thoughts, it pierced, and made me glad;
Exceedingly glad, and I knew verily,
"A little thing just then had made me mad;
I dared not think, as I was wont to do,
Sometimes, upon my beauty; If I had
"Held out my long hand up against the blue,
And, looking on the tenderly darken'd fingers,
Thought that by rights one ought to see quite through,
"There, see you, where the soft still light yet lingers,
Round by the edges; what should I have done,
If this had joined with yellow spotted singers,
"And startling green drawn upward by the sun?
But shouting, loosed out, see now! all my hair,
And trancedly stood watching the west wind run
"With faintest half-heard breathing sound--why there
I lose my head e'en now in doing this;
But shortly listen--In that garden fair
"Came Launcelot walking; this is true, the kiss
Wherewith we kissed in meeting that spring day,
I scarce dare talk of the remember'd bliss,
"When both our mouths went wandering in one way,
And aching sorely, met among the leaves;
Our hands being left behind strained far away.
"Never within a yard of my bright sleeves
Had Launcelot come before--and now, so nigh!
After that day why is it Guenevere grieves?
"Nevertheless you, O Sir Gauwaine, lie,
Whatever happened on through all those years,
God knows I speak truth, saying that you lie.
"Being such a lady could I weep these tears
If this were true? A great queen such as I
Having sinn'd this way, straight her conscience sears;
"And afterwards she liveth hatefully,
Slaying and poisoning, certes never weeps,--
Gauwaine be friends now, speak me lovingly.
"Do I not see how God's dear pity creeps
All through your frame, and trembles in your mouth?
Remember in what grave your mother sleeps,
"Buried in some place far down in the south,
Men are forgetting as I speak to you;
By her head sever'd in that awful drouth
"Of pity that drew Agravaine's fell blow,
I pray your pity! let me not scream out
For ever after, when the shrill winds blow
"Through half your castle-locks! let me not shout
For ever after in the winter night
When you ride out alone! in battle-rout
"Let not my rusting tears make your sword light!
Ah! God of mercy how he turns away!
So, ever must I dress me to the fight,
"So--let God's justice work! Gauwaine, I say,
See me hew down your proofs: yea all men know
Even as you said how Mellyagraunce one day,
"One bitter day in _la Fausse Garde_, for so
All good knights held it after, saw--
Yea, sirs, by cursed unknightly outrage; though
"You, Gauwaine, held his word without a flaw,
This Mellyagraunce saw blood upon my bed--
Whose blood then pray you? is there any law
"To make a queen say why some spots of red
Lie on her coverlet? or will you say,
'Your hands are white, lady, as when you wed,
"'Where did you bleed?' and must I stammer out--'Nay',
I blush indeed, fair lord, only to rend
My sleeve up to my shoulder, where there lay
"'A knife-point last night:' so must I defend
The honour of the lady Guenevere?
Not so, fair lords, even if the world should end
"This very day, and you were judges here
When Launcelot stood by him? what white fear
"Curdled his blood, and how his teeth did dance,
His side sink in? as my knight cried and said,
'Slayer of unarm'd men, here is a chance!
"'Setter of traps, I pray you guard your head,
By God I am so glad to fight with you,
Stripper of ladies, that my hand feels lead
"'For driving weight; hurrah now! draw and do,
For all my wounds are moving in my breast,
And I am getting mad with waiting so.'
"He struck his hands together o'er the beast,
Who fell down flat, and grovell'd at his feet,
And groan'd at being slain so young--'at least.'
"My knight said, 'Rise you, sir, who are so fleet
At catching ladies, half-arm'd will I fight,
My left side all uncover'd!' then I weet,
"Up sprang Sir Mellyagraunce with great delight
Upon his knave's face; not until just then
Did I quite hate him, as I saw my knight
"Along the lists look to my stake and pen
With such a joyous smile, it made me sigh
From agony beneath my waist-chain, when
"The fight began, and to me they drew nigh;
Ever Sir Launcelot kept him on the right,
And traversed warily, and ever high
"And fast leapt caitiff's sword, until my knight
Sudden threw up his sword to his left hand,
Caught it, and swung it; that was all the fight.
"Except a spout of blood on the hot land;
For it was hottest summer; and I know
I wonder'd how the fire, while I should stand,
"And burn, against the heat, would quiver so,
Yards above my head; thus these matters went:
Which things were only warnings of the woe
"That fell on me. Yet Mellyagraunce was shent,
For Mellyagraunce had fought against the Lord;
Therefore, my lords, take heed lest you be blent
"With all this wickedness; say no rash word
Against me, being so beautiful; my eyes,
Wept all away the grey, may bring some sword
"To drown you in your blood; see my breast rise,
Like waves of purple sea, as here I stand;
And how my arms are moved in wonderful wise,
"Yea also at my full heart's strong command,
See through my long throat how the words go up
In ripples to my mouth; how in my hand
"The shadow lies like wine within a cup
Of marvellously colour'd gold; yea now
This little wind is rising, look you up,
"And wonder how the light is falling so
Within my moving tresses: will you dare
When you have looked a little on my brow,
"To say this thing is vile? or will you care
For any plausible lies of cunning woof,
When you can see my face with no lie there
"For ever? am I not a gracious proof--
'But in your chamber Launcelot was found'--
Is there a good knight then would stand aloof,
"When a queen says with gentle queenly sound:
'O true as steel come now and talk with me,
I love to see your step upon the ground
"'Unwavering, also well I love to see
That gracious smile light up your face, and hear
Your wonderful words, that all mean verily
"'The thing they seem to mean: good friend, so dear
To me in everything, come here to-night,
Or else the hours will pass most dull and drear;
"'If you come not, I fear this time I might
Get thinking over much of times gone by,
When I was young, and green hope was in sight:
"'For no man cares now to know why I sigh;
And no man comes to sing me pleasant songs,
Nor any brings me the sweet flowers that lie
"'So thick in the gardens; therefore one so longs
To see you, Launcelot; that we may be
Like children once again, free from all wrongs
"'Just for one night.' Did he not come to me?
What thing could keep true Launcelot away
If I said 'Come?' there was one less than three
"In my quiet room that night, and we were gay;
Till sudden I rose up, weak, pale, and sick,
Because a bawling broke our dream up, yea
"I looked at Launcelot's face and could not speak,
For he looked helpless too, for a little while;
Then I remember how I tried to shriek,
"And could not, but fell down; from tile to tile
The stones they threw up rattled o'er my head
And made me dizzier; till within a while
"My maids were all about me, and my head
On Launcelot's breast was being soothed away
From its white chattering, until Launcelot said--
"By God! I will not tell you more to-day,
Judge any way you will--what matters it?
You know quite well the story of that fray,
"How Launcelot still'd their bawling, the mad fit
That caught up Gauwaine--all, all, verily,
But just that which would save me; these things flit.
"Nevertheless you, O Sir Gauwaine, lie,
Whatever may have happen'd these long years,
God knows I speak truth, saying that you lie!
"All I have said is truth, by Christ's dear tears."
She would not speak another word, but stood
Turn'd sideways; listening, like a man who hears
His brother's trumpet sounding through the wood
Of his foe's lances. She lean'd eagerly,
And gave a slight spring sometimes, as she could
At last hear something really; joyfully
Her cheek grew crimson, as the headlong speed
Of the roan charger drew all men to see,
The knight who came was Launcelot at good need.
SIR GUY, _being in the court of a Pagan castle_.
This castle where I dwell, it stands
A long way off from Christian lands,
A long way off my lady's hands,
A long way off the aspen trees,
And murmur of the lime-tree bees.
But down the Valley of the Rose
My lady often hawking goes,
Heavy of cheer; oft turns behind,
Leaning towards the western wind,
Because it bringeth to her mind
Sad whisperings of happy times,
The face of him who sings these rhymes.
King Guilbert rides beside her there,
Bends low and calls her very fair,
And strives, by pulling down his hair,
To hide from my dear lady's ken
The grisly gash I gave him, when
I cut him down at Camelot;
However he strives, he hides it not,
That tourney will not be forgot,
Besides, it is King Guilbert's lot,
Whatever he says she answers not.
Now tell me, you that are in love,
From the king's son to the wood-dove,
Which is the better, he or I?
For this king means that I should die
In this lone Pagan castle, where
The flowers droop in the bad air
On the September evening.
Look, now I take mine ease and sing,
Counting as but a little thing
The foolish spite of a bad king.
For these vile things that hem me in,
These Pagan beasts who live in sin,
The sickly flowers pale and wan,
The grim blue-bearded castellan,
The stanchions half worn-out with rust,
Whereto their banner vile they trust--
Why, all these things I hold them just
Like dragons in a missal book,
Wherein, whenever we may look,
We see no horror, yea, delight
We have, the colours are so bright;
Likewise we note the specks of white,
And the great plates of burnish'd gold.
Just so this Pagan castle old,
And everything I can see there,
Sick-pining in the marshland air,
I note; I will go over now,
Like one who paints with knitted brow,
The flowers and all things one by one,
From the snail on the wall to the setting sun.
Four great walls, and a little one
That leads down to the barbican,
Which walls with many spears they man,
When news comes to the castellan
Of Launcelot being in the land.
And as I sit here, close at hand
Four spikes of sad sick sunflowers stand,
The castellan with a long wand
Cuts down their leaves as he goes by,
Ponderingly, with screw'd-up eye,
And fingers twisted in his beard--
Nay, was it a knight's shout I heard?
I have a hope makes me afeard:
It cannot be, but if some dream
Just for a minute made me deem
I saw among the flowers there
My lady's face with long red hair,
Pale, ivory-colour'd dear face come,
As I was wont to see her some
Fading September afternoon,
And kiss me, saying nothing, soon
To leave me by myself again;
Could I get this by longing: vain!
The castellan is gone: I see
On one broad yellow flower a bee
Drunk with much honey--
Christ! again,
Some distant knight's voice brings me pain,
I thought I had forgot to feel,
I never heard the blissful steel
These ten years past; year after year,
Through all my hopeless sojourn here,
No Christian pennon has been near;
Laus Deo! the dragging wind draws on
Over the marches, battle won,
Knights' shouts, and axes hammering,
Yea, quicker now the dint and ring
Of flying hoofs; ah, castellan,
When they come back count man for man,
Say whom you miss.
The PAGANS, _from the battlements_.
Mahmoud to aid!
Why flee ye so like men dismay'd?
The PAGANS, _from without_.
Nay, haste! for here is Launcelot,
Who follows quick upon us, hot
And shouting with his men-at-arms.
Also the Pagans raise alarms,
And ring the bells for fear; at last
My prison walls will be well past.
SIR LAUNCELOT, _from outside_.
Ho! in the name of the Trinity,
Let down the drawbridge quick to me,
And open doors, that I may see
Guy the good knight.
The PAGANS, _from the battlements_.
With mere big words ye win us not.
Bid Miles bring up la perriere,
And archers clear the vile walls there,
Bring back the notches to the ear,
Shoot well together! God to aid!
These miscreants shall be well paid.
Hurrah! all goes together; Miles
Is good to win my lady's smiles
For his good shooting--Launcelot!
On knights a-pace! this game is hot!
SIR GUY _sayeth afterwards_.
I said, I go to meet her now,
And saying so, I felt a blow
From some clench'd hand across my brow,
And fell down on the sunflowers
Just as a hammering smote my ears,
After which this I felt in sooth;
My bare hands throttling without ruth
The hairy-throated castellan;
Then a grim fight with those that ran
To slay me, while I shouted, "God
For the Lady Mary!" deep I trod
That evening in my own red blood;
Nevertheless so stiff I stood,
That when the knights burst the old wood
Of the castle-doors, I was not dead.
I kiss the Lady Mary's head,
Her lips, and her hair golden red,
Because to-day we have been wed.
There were four of us about that bed;
The mass-priest knelt at the side,
I and his mother stood at the head,
Over his feet lay the bride;
We were quite sure that he was dead,
Though his eyes were open wide.
He did not die in the night,
He did not die in the day,
But in the morning twilight
His spirit pass'd away,
When neither sun nor moon was bright,
And the trees were merely grey.
He was not slain with the sword,
Knight's axe, or the knightly spear,
Yet spoke he never a word
After he came in here;
I cut away the cord
From the neck of my brother dear.
He did not strike one blow,
For the recreants came behind,
In a place where the hornbeams grow,
A path right hard to find,
For the hornbeam boughs swing so,
That the twilight makes it blind.
They lighted a great torch then,
When his arms were pinion'd fast,
Sir John the knight of the Fen,
With knights threescore and ten,
Hung brave Lord Hugh at last.
I am threescore and ten,
And my hair is all turn'd grey,
Long ago on a summer day,
And am glad to think of the moment when
I took his life away.
I am threescore and ten,
And my strength is mostly pass'd,
But long ago I and my men,
When the sky was overcast,
And the smoke roll'd over the reeds of the fen,
And now, knights all of you,
I pray you pray for Sir Hugh,
A good knight and a true,
And for Alice, his wife, pray too.
Gold on her head, and gold on her feet,
And gold where the hems of her kirtle meet,
And a golden girdle round my sweet;--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
Margaret's maids are fair to see,
Freshly dress'd and pleasantly;
Margaret's hair falls down to her knee;--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
If I were rich I would kiss her feet,
I would kiss the place where the gold hems meet,
And the golden girdle round my sweet--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
Ah me! I have never touch'd her hand;
When the arriere-ban goes through the land,
Six basnets under my pennon stand;--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
And many an one grins under his hood:
"Sir Lambert de Bois, with all his men good,
Has neither food nor firewood;"--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
If I were rich I would kiss her feet,
And the golden girdle of my sweet,
And thereabouts where the gold hems meet;--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
Yet even now it is good to think,
While my few poor varlets grumble and drink
In my desolate hall where the fires sink;--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
Of Margaret sitting glorious there,
In glory of gold and glory of hair,
And glory of glorious face most fair;--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
Likewise to-night I make good cheer,
Because this battle draweth near:
For what have I to lose or fear?--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
For, look you, my horse is good to prance
A right fair measure in this war-dance,
Before the eyes of Philip of France;--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
And sometime it may hap, perdie,
While my new towers stand up three and three,
And my hall gets painted fair to see--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._--
That folks may say: "Times change, by the rood,
For Lambert, banneret of the wood,
Has heaps of food and firewood;--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite;_--
"And wonderful eyes, too, under the hood
Of a damsel of right noble blood:"
St. Ives, for Lambert of the wood!--
_Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite._
Had she come all the way for this,
To part at last without a kiss?
Yea, had she borne the dirt and rain
That her own eyes might see him slain
Beside the haystack in the floods?
Along the dripping leafless woods,
The stirrup touching either shoe,
She rode astride as troopers do;
With kirtle kilted to her knee,
To which the mud splash'd wretchedly;
And the wet dripp'd from every tree
Upon her head and heavy hair,
And on her eyelids broad and fair;
The tears and rain ran down her face.
By fits and starts they rode apace,
And very often was his place
Far off from her; he had to ride
Ahead, to see what might betide
When the road cross'd; and sometimes, when
There rose a murmuring from his men,
Had to turn back with promises;
Ah me! she had but little ease;
And often for pure doubt and dread
She sobb'd, made giddy in the head
By the swift riding; while, for cold,
Her slender fingers scarce could hold
The wet reins; yea, and scarcely, too,
She felt the foot within her shoe
Against the stirrup: all for this,
To part at last without a kiss
Beside the haystack in the floods.
For when they near'd that old soak'd hay,
They saw across the only way
That Judas, Godmar, and the three
Red running lions dismally
Grinn'd from his pennon, under which
In one straight line along the ditch,
They counted thirty heads.
So then,
While Robert turn'd round to his men,
She saw at once the wretched end,
And, stooping down, tried hard to rend
Her coif the wrong way from her head,
And hid her eyes; while Robert said:
"Nay, love, 'tis scarcely two to one,
At Poictiers where we made them run
So fast--why, sweet my love, good cheer,
The Gascon frontier is so near,
Nought after this."
"My God! my God! I have to tread
The long way back without you; then
The court at Paris; those six men;
The gratings of the Chatelet;
The swift Seine on some rainy day
Like this, and people standing by,
And laughing, while my weak hands try
To recollect how strong men swim.
All this, or else a life with him,
For which I should be damned at last,
Would God that this next hour were past!"
He answer'd not, but cried his cry,
"St. George for Marny!" cheerily;
And laid his hand upon her rein.
Alas! no man of all his train
Gave back that cheery cry again;
And, while for rage his thumb beat fast
Upon his sword-hilt, some one cast
About his neck a kerchief long,
And bound him.
Then they went along
To Godmar; who said: "Now, Jehane,
Your lover's life is on the wane
So fast, that, if this very hour
You yield not as my paramour,
He will not see the rain leave off--
Nay, keep your tongue from gibe and scoff,
Sir Robert, or I slay you now."
She laid her hand upon her brow,
Then gazed upon the palm, as though
She thought her forehead bled, and--"No,"
She said, and turn'd her head away,
As there were nothing else to say,
And everything were settled: red
Grew Godmar's face from chin to head:
"Jehane, on yonder hill there stands
My castle, guarding well my lands:
What hinders me from taking you,
And doing that I list to do
To your fair wilful body, while
Your knight lies dead?"
A wicked smile
Wrinkled her face, her lips grew thin,
A long way out she thrust her chin:
"You know that I should strangle you
While you were sleeping; or bite through
Your throat, by God's help--ah!" she said,
"Lord Jesus, pity your poor maid!
For in such wise they hem me in,
I cannot choose but sin and sin,
Whatever happens: yet I think
They could not make me eat or drink,
And so should I just reach my rest."
"Nay, if you do not my behest,
O Jehane! though I love you well,"
Said Godmar, "would I fail to tell
All that I know." "Foul lies," she said.
"Eh? lies, my Jehane? by God's head,
At Paris folks would deem them true!
Do you know, Jehane, they cry for you,
'Jehane the brown! Jehane the brown!
Give us Jehane to burn or drown!'--
Eh--gag me, Robert!--sweet my friend,
This were indeed a piteous end
For those long fingers, and long feet,
And long neck, and smooth shoulders sweet;
An end that few men would forget
That saw it--So, an hour yet:
Consider, Jehane, which to take
Of life or death!"
So, scarce awake
Dismounting, did she leave that place,
And totter some yards: with her face
Turn'd upward to the sky she lay,
Her head on a wet heap of hay,
And fell asleep: and while she slept,
And did not dream, the minutes crept
Round to the twelve again; but she,
Being waked at last, sigh'd quietly,
And strangely childlike came, and said:
"I will not." Straightway Godmar's head,
As though it hung on strong wires, turn'd
Most sharply round, and his face burn'd.
For Robert--both his eyes were dry,
He could not weep but gloomily
He seem'd to watch the rain; yea, too,
His lips were firm; he tried once more
To touch her lips; she reach'd out, sore
And vain desire so tortured them,
The poor grey lips, and now the hem
Of his sleeve brush'd them.
With a start
Up Godmar rose, thrust them apart;
From Robert's throat he loosed the bands
Of silk and mail; with empty hands
Held out, she stood and gazed, and saw,
The long bright blade without a flaw
Glide out from Godmar's sheath, his hand
In Robert's hair; she saw him bend
Back Robert's head; she saw him send
The thin steel down; the blow told well,
Right backward the knight Robert fell,
And moan'd as dogs do, being half dead,
Unwitting, as I deem: so then
Godmar turn'd grinning to his men,
Who ran, some five or six, and beat
His head to pieces at their feet.
Then Godmar turn'd again and said:
"So, Jehane, the first fitte is read!
Take note, my lady, that your way
Lies backward to the Chatelet!"
She shook her head and gazed awhile
At her cold hands with a rueful smile,
As though this thing had made her mad.
This was the parting that they had
Beside the haystack in the floods.
For many, many days together
The wind blew steady from the East;
For many days hot grew the weather,
About the time of our Lady's Feast.
For many days we rode together,
Yet met we neither friend nor foe;
Hotter and clearer grew the weather,
Steadily did the East wind blow.
We saw the trees in the hot, bright weather,
Clear-cut, with shadows very black,
As freely we rode on together
With helms unlaced and bridles slack.
And often as we rode together,
We, looking down the green-bank'd stream,
Saw flowers in the sunny weather,
And saw the bubble-making bream.
And in the night lay down together,
And hung above our heads the rood,
Or watch'd night-long in the dewy weather,
The while the moon did watch the wood.
Our spears stood bright and thick together,
Straight out the banners stream'd behind,
As we gallop'd on in the sunny weather,
With faces turn'd towards the wind.
Down sank our threescore spears together,
As thick we saw the Pagans ride;
His eager face in the clear fresh weather,
Shone out that last time by my side.
Up the sweep of the bridge we dash'd together,
It rock'd to the crash of the meeting spears,
Down rain'd the buds of the dear spring weather,
The elm-tree flowers fell like tears.
There, as we roll'd and writhed together,
I threw my arms above my head,
For close by my side, in the lovely weather,
I saw him reel and fall back dead.
I and the slayer met together,
He waited the death-stroke there in his place,
With thoughts of death, in the lovely weather,
Gapingly mazed at my madden'd face.
Madly I fought as we fought together;
In vain: the little Christian band
The pagans drowned, as in stormy weather,
The river drowns low-lying land.
They bound my blood-stain'd hands together,
They bound his corpse to nod by my side:
Then on we rode, in the bright-March weather,
With clash of cymbals did we ride.
We ride no more, no more together;
My prison-bars are thick and strong,
I take no heed of any weather,
The sweet Saints grant I live not long.
Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips,
Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips,
Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold
Waits to float through them along with the sun.
Far out in the meadows, above the young corn,
The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold
The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun;
Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn,
Round the lone house in the midst of the corn.
Speak but one word to me over the corn,
Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn.
Across the open sea they drew their wake
For three long days, and when the fourth 'gan break
Their eyes beheld the fair Trinacrian shore,
And there-along they coasted two days more.
Then first Medea warned them to take heed,
Lest they should end all memory of their deed
Where dwell the Sirens on the yellow sand,
And folk should think some tangled poisonous land
Had buried them, or some tumultuous sea
O'er their white bones was tossing angrily;
Or that some muddy river, far from Greece,
Drove seaward o'er the ringlets of the Fleece.
But when the Minyae hearkened to this word,
With many a thought their wearied hearts were stirred,
And longing for the near-gained Grecian land,
Where in a little while their feet should stand;
Yet none the less like to a happy dream,
Now, when they neared it, did their own home seem,
And like a dream the glory of their quest,
And therewithal some thought of present rest
Stole over them, and they were fain to sigh,
Hearkening the sighing restless wind go by.
But hard on even of the second day,
As o'er the gentle waves they took their way,
The orange-scented land-breeze seemed to bear
Some other sounds unto the listening ear
Than all day long they had been hearkening,
The land-born signs of many a well-known thing.
Thereat Medea trembled, for she knew
That nigh the dreadful sands at last they drew,
For certainly the Sirens' song she heard,
Though yet her ear could shape it to no word,
And by their faces could the queen behold
How sweet it was, although no tale it told,
To those worn toilers o'er the bitter sea.
Now, as they sped along, they presently,
Rounding a headland, reached a little bay
Walled from the sea by splintered cliffs and grey,
Capped by the thymy hills' green wind-beat head,
Where 'mid the whin the burrowing rabbits fed.
And 'neath the cliff they saw a belt of sand,
'Twixt Nereus' pasture and the high scarped land,
Whereon, yet far off, could their eyes behold
White bodies moving, crowned and girt with gold,
Wherefrom it seemed that lovely music welled.
So when all this the grey-eyed queen beheld,
She said: "O Jason, I have made thee wise
In this and other things; turn then thine eyes
Seaward, and note the ripple of the sea,
Where there is hope as well as fear for thee.
Nor look upon the death that lurketh there
'Neath the grey cliff, though sweet it seems and fair;
For thou art young upon this day to die.
Take then the helm, and gazing steadily
Upon the road to Greece, make strong thine hand,
And steer us toward the lion-haunted land,
And thou, O Thracian! if thou e'er hast moved
Men's hearts with stories of the Gods who loved,
And men who suffered, move them on this day,
Taking the deadly love of death away,
That even now is stealing over them,
While still they gaze upon the ocean's hem,
Where their undoing is if they but knew."
But while she spake, still nigher Argo drew
Unto the yellow edges of the shore,
And little help she had of ashen oar,
For as her shielded side rolled through the sea,
Silent with glittering eyes the Minyae
Gazed o'er the surge, for they were nigh enow
To see the gusty wind of evening blow
Long locks of hair across those bodies white,
With golden spray hiding some dear delight;
Yea, nigh enow to see their red lips smile,
Wherefrom all song had ceased now for a while,
As though they deemed the prey was in the net,
And they no more had need a bait to set,
But their own bodies, fair beyond man's thought,
Under the grey cliff, hidden not of aught
But of such mist of tears as in the eyes
Of those seafaring men might chance to rise.
A moment Jason gazed, then through the waist
Ran swiftly, and with trembling hands made haste
To trim the sail, then to the tiller ran,
And thrust aside the skilled Milesian man,
Who with half-open mouth, and dreamy eyes,
Stood steering Argo to that land of lies;
But as he staggered forward, Jason's hand
Hard on the tiller steered away from land,
And as her head a little now fell off
Unto the wide sea, did he shout this scoff
To Thracian Orpheus: "Minstrel, shall we die,
Because thou hast forgotten utterly
What things she taught thee whom men call divine?
Or will thy measures but lead folk to wine,
And scented beds, and not to noble deeds?
Or will they fail as fail the shepherd's reeds
Before the trumpet, when these sea-witches
Pipe shrilly to the washing of the seas?
I am a man, and these but beasts, but thou
Giving these souls, that all were men ere now,
Shalt be a very God and not a man!"
So spake he; but his fingers Orpheus ran
Over the strings, and sighing turned away
From that fair ending of the sunny bay;
But as his well-skilled hands were preluding
What his heart swelled with, they began to sing
With pleading voices from the yellow sands,
Clustered together, with appealing hands
Reached out to Argo as the great sail drew,
While o'er their white limbs sharp the spray-shower flew,
Since they spared not to set white feet among
The cold waves heedless of their honied song.
Sweetly they sang, and still the answer came
Piercing and clear from him, as bursts the flame
From out the furnace in the moonless night;
Yet, as their words are no more known aright
Through lapse of many ages, and no man
Can any more across the waters wan
Behold those singing women of the sea,
Once more I pray you all to pardon me,
If with my feeble voice and harsh I sing
From what dim memories yet may chance to cling
About men's hearts, of lovely things once sung
Beside the sea, while yet the world was young.
O happy seafarers are ye,
And surely all your ills are past,
And toil upon the land and sea,
Since ye are brought to us at last.
To you the fashion of the world,
Wide lands laid waste, fair cities burned,
And plagues, and kings from kingdoms hurled,
Are nought, since hither ye have turned.
For as upon this beach we stand,
And o'er our heads the sea-fowl flit,
Our eyes behold a glorious land,
And soon shall ye be kings of it.
A little more, a little more,
O carriers of the Golden Fleece,
A little labour with the oar,
Before we reach the land of Greece.
E'en now perchance faint rumours reach
Men's ears of this our victory,
And draw them down unto the beach
To gaze across the empty sea.
But since the longed-for day is nigh,
And scarce a God could stay us now,
Why do ye hang your heads and sigh,
Hindering for nought our eager prow?
Ah, had ye chanced to reach the home
On which your fond desires were set,
Into what troubles had ye come?
Short love and joy and long regret.
But now, but now, when ye have lain
Asleep with us a little while
Beneath the washing of the main,
How calm shall be your waking smile!
For ye shall smile to think of life
That knows no troublous change or fear,
No unavailing bitter strife,
That ere its time brings trouble near.
Is there some murmur in your ears,
That all that we have done is nought,
And nothing ends our cares and fears,
Till the last fear on us is brought?
Alas! and will ye stop your ears,
In vain desire to do aught,
And wish to live 'mid cares and fears,
Until the last fear makes you nought?
Is not the May-time now on earth,
When close against the city wall
The folk are singing in their mirth,
While on their heads the May-flowers fall?
Yes, May is come, and its sweet breath
Shall well-nigh make you weep to-day,
And pensive with swift-coming death,
Shall ye be satiate of the May.
Shall not July bring fresh delight,
As underneath green trees ye sit,
And o'er some damsel's body white
The noontide shadows change and flit?
No new delight July shall bring
But ancient fear and fresh desire,
And, spite of every lovely thing,
Of July surely shall ye tire.
And now, when August comes on thee,
And 'mid the golden sea of corn
The merry reapers thou mayst see,
Wilt thou still think the earth forlorn?
Set flowers upon thy short-lived head,
And in thine heart forgetfulness
Of man's hard toil, and scanty bread,
And weary of those days no less.
Or wilt thou climb the sunny hill,
In the October afternoon,
To watch the purple earth's blood fill
The grey vat to the maiden's tune?
When thou beginnest to grow old,
Bring back remembrance of thy bliss
With that the shining cup doth hold,
And weary helplessly of this.
Or pleasureless shall we pass by
The long cold night and leaden day,
That song, and tale, and minstrelsy
Shall make as merry as the May?
List then, to-night, to some old tale
Until the tears o'erflow thine eyes;
But what shall all these things avail,
When sad to-morrow comes and dies?
And when the world is born again,
And with some fair love, side by side,
Thou wanderest 'twixt the sun and rain,
In that fresh love-begetting tide;
Then, when the world is born again,
And the sweet year before thee lies,
Shall thy heart think of coming pain,
Or vex itself with memories?
Ah! then the world is born again
With burning love unsatisfied,
And new desires fond and vain,
And weary days from tide to tide.
Ah! when the world is born again,
A little day is soon gone by,
When thou, unmoved by sun or rain,
Within a cold straight house shalt lie.
Therewith they ceased awhile, as languidly
The head of Argo fell off toward the sea,
And through the water she began to go,
For from the land a fitful wind did blow,
That, dallying with the many-coloured sail,
Would sometimes swell it out and sometimes fail,
As nigh the east side of the bay they drew;
Then o'er the waves again the music flew.
Think not of pleasure, short and vain.
Wherewith, 'mid days of toil and pain,
With sick and sinking hearts ye strive
To cheat yourselves that ye may live
With cold death ever close at hand;
Think rather of a peaceful land,
The changeless land where ye may be
Roofed over by the changeful sea.
And is the fair town nothing then,
The coming of the wandering men
With that long talked of thing and strange,
And news of how the kingdoms change;
The pointed hands, and wondering
At doers of a desperate thing?
Push on, for surely this shall be
Across a narrow strip of sea.
Alas! poor souls and timorous,
Will ye draw nigh to gaze at us
And see if we are fair indeed,
For such as we shall be your meed,
There, where our hearts would have you go.
And where can the earth-dwellers show
In any land such loveliness
As that wherewith your eyes we bless,
O wanderers of the Minyae,
Worn toilers over land and sea?
Fair as the lightning thwart the sky,
As sun-dyed snow upon the high
Untrodden heaps of threatening stone
The eagle looks upon alone,
O fair as the doomed victim's wreath,
O fair as deadly sleep and death,
What will ye with them, earthly men,
To mate your three-score years and ten?
Toil rather, suffer and be free,
Betwixt the green earth and the sea.
If ye be bold with us to go,
Things such as happy dreams may show
Shall your once heavy eyes behold
About our palaces of gold;
Where waters 'neath the waters run,
And from o'erhead a harmless sun
Gleams through the woods of chrysolite.
There gardens fairer to the sight
Than those of the Phaeacian king
Shall ye behold; and, wondering,
Gaze on the sea-born fruit and flowers,
And thornless and unchanging bowers,
Whereof the May-time knoweth nought.
So to the pillared house being brought,
Poor souls, ye shall not be alone,
For o'er the floors of pale blue stone
All day such feet as ours shall pass,
And, 'twixt the glimmering walls of glass,
Such bodies garlanded with gold,
So faint, so fair, shall ye behold,
And clean forget the treachery
Of changing earth and tumbling sea.
O the sweet valley of deep grass,
Where-through the summer stream doth pass,
In chain of shallow, and still pool,
From misty morn to evening cool;
Where the black ivy creeps and twines
O'er the dark-armed, red-trunked pines,
Whence clattering the pigeon flits,
Or, brooding o'er her thin eggs, sits,
And every hollow of the hills
With echoing song the mavis fills.
There by the stream, all unafraid,
Shall stand the happy shepherd maid,
Alone in first of sunlit hours;
Behind her, on the dewy flowers,
Her homespun woollen raiment lies,
And her white limbs and sweet grey eyes
Shine from the calm green pool and deep,
While round about the swallows sweep,
Not silent; and would God that we,
Like them, were landed from the sea.
Shall we not rise with you at night,
Up through the shimmering green twilight,
That maketh there our changeless day,
Then going through the moonlight grey,
Shall we not sit upon these sands,
To think upon the troublous lands
Long left behind, where once ye were,
When every day brought change and fear?
There, with white arms about you twined,
And shuddering somewhat at the wind
That ye rejoiced erewhile to meet,
Be happy, while old stories sweet,
Half understood, float round your ears,
And fill your eyes with happy tears.
Ah! while we sing unto you there,
As now we sing, with yellow hair
Blown round about these pearly limbs,
While underneath the grey sky swims
The light shell-sailor of the waves,
And to our song, from sea-filled caves
Booms out an echoing harmony,
Shall ye not love the peaceful sea?
Nigh the vine-covered hillocks green,
In days agone, have I not seen
The brown-clad maidens amorous,
Below the long rose-trellised house,
Dance to the querulous pipe and shrill,
When the grey shadow of the hill
Was lengthening at the end of day?
Not shadowy nor pale were they,
But limbed like those who 'twixt the trees,
Follow the swift of Goddesses.
Sunburnt they are somewhat, indeed,
To where the rough brown woollen weed
Is drawn across their bosoms sweet,
Or cast from off their dancing feet;
But yet the stars, the moonlight grey,
The water wan, the dawn of day,
Can see their bodies fair and white
As Hers, who once, for man's delight,
Before the world grew hard and old,
Came o'er the bitter sea and cold;
And surely those that met me there,
Her handmaidens and subjects were;
And shame-faced, half-repressed desire
Had lit their glorious eyes with fire,
That maddens eager hearts of men.
O would that I were with them when
The new-risen moon is gathering light,
And yellow from the homestead white
The windows gleam; but verily
This waits us o'er a little sea.
Come to the land where none grows old,
And none is rash or over-bold,
Nor any noise there is nor war,
Nor rumour from wild lands afar,
Nor plagues, nor birth and death of kings;
No vain desire of unknown things
Shall vex you there, no hope or fear
Of that which never draweth near;
But in that lovely land and still
Ye may remember what ye will,
And what ye will, forget for aye.
So while the kingdoms pass away,
Ye sea-beat hardened toilers erst,
Unresting, for vain fame athirst,
Shall be at peace for evermore,
With hearts fulfilled of Godlike lore,
And calm, unwavering Godlike love,
No lapse of time can turn or move.
There, ages after your fair Fleece
Is clean forgotten, yea, and Greece
Is no more counted glorious,
Alone with us, alone with us,
Alone with us, dwell happily,
Beneath our trembling roof of sea.
Ah! do ye weary of the strife
And long to change this eager life
For shadowy and dull hopelessness,
Thinking indeed to gain no less
Than far from this grey light to lie,
And there to die and not to die,
To be as if ye ne'er had been,
Yet keep your memory fresh and green,
To have no thought of good or ill,
Yet feed your fill or pleasure still?
O idle dream! Ah, verily
If it shall happen unto me
That I have thought of anything,
When o'er my bones the sea-fowl sing,
And I lie dead, how shall I pine
For those fresh joys that once were mine,
On this green fount of joy and mirth,
The ever young and glorious earth;
Then, helpless, shall I call to mind
Thoughts of the sweet flower-scented wind,
The dew, the gentle rain at night,
The wonder-working snow and white.
The song of birds, the water's fall,
The sun that maketh bliss of all;
Yea, this our toil and victory,
The tyrannous and conquered sea.
Ah, will ye go, and whither then
Will ye go from us, soon to die,
To fill your three-score years and ten,
With many an unnamed misery?
And this the wretchedest of all,
That when upon your lonely eyes
The last faint heaviness shall fall
Ye shall bethink you of our cries.
Come back, nor grown old, seek in vain
To hear us sing across the sea.
Come back, come back, come back again,
Come back, O fearful Minyae!
Ah, once again, ah, once again,
The black prow plunges through the sea,
Nor yet shall all your toil be vain,
Nor yet forgot, O Minyae.
In such wise sang the Thracian, in such wise
Out gushed the Sirens' deadly melodies;
But long before the mingled song was done,
Back to the oars the Minyae, one by one,
Slunk silently; though many an one sighed sore,
As his strong fingers met the wood once more,
And from his breast the toilsome breathing came.
But as they laboured, some for very shame
Hung down their heads, and yet amongst them some
Gazed at the place whence that sweet song had come;
But round the oars and Argo's shielded side
The sea grew white, and she began to glide
Swift through the waters of that deadly bay;
But when a long wake now behind her lay,
And still the whistle of the wind increased,
Past shroud and mast, and all the song had ceased,
Butes rose up, the fair Athenian man,
And with wild eyes betwixt the rowers ran
Unto the poop and leapt into the sea;
Then all men rested on their oars, but he
Rose to the top, and towards the shore swam fast;
While all eyes watched him, who had well-nigh past
The place where sand and water 'gan to meet
In wreaths and ripples round the ivory feet,
When sun-burnt swimmer, snow-white glancing limb,
And yellow sand unto their eyes grew dim,
Nor did they see their fellow any more.
But when they once again beheld the shore
The wind sung o'er the empty beach and bare,
And by the cliff uprose into the air
A delicate and glittering little cloud,
That seemed some many-coloured sun to shroud;
But as the rugged cliff it drew above
The wondering Minyae beheld it move
Westward, toward Lilybaeum and the sun.
Then once more was their seaward course begun,
And soon those deadly sands were far astern,
Nor ever after could the heroes learn
If Butes lived or died; but old tales tell
That while the tumbling waves he breasted well,
Venus beheld him, as unseen she drew
From sunny Cyprus to the headland blue
Of Lilybaeum, where her temple is;
She, with a mind his sun-burnt brows to kiss,
E'en as his feet were dropping nigh the beach,
And ere his hand the deadly hands could reach,
Stooped, as the merlin stoops upon the dove,
And snatched him thence to be awhile her love,
Betwixt the golden pillars of her shrine,
That those who pass the Aegades see shine
From high-raised Lilybaeum o'er the sea.
But far away the sea-beat Minyae
Cast forth the foam, as through the growing night
They laboured ever, having small delight
In life all empty of that promised bliss,
In love that scarce can give a dying kiss,
In pleasure ending sweet songs with a wail,
In fame that little can dead men avail,
In vain toil struggling with the fateful stream,
In hope, the promise of a morning dream.
Yet as night died, and the cold sea and grey
Seemed running with them toward the dawn of day,
Needs must they once again forget their death,
Needs must they, being alive and drawing breath,
As men who of no other life can know
In their own minds again immortal grow.
But toward the south a little now they bent,
And for a while o'er landless sea they went,
But on the third day made another land
At dawn of day, and thitherward did stand;
And since the wind blew lightly from the shore,
Somewhat abeam, they feared not with the oar
To push across the shallowing sea and green,
That washed a land the fairest they had seen,
Whose shell-strewn beach at highest of the tide
'Twixt sea and flowery shore was nowise wide,
And drawn a little backward from the sea
There stood a marble wall wrought cunningly,
Rosy and white, set thick with images,
And over-topped with heavy-fruited trees,
Which by the shore ran, as the bay did bend,
And to their eyes had neither gap nor end;
Nor any gate: and looking over this,
They saw a place not made for earthly bliss,
Or eyes of dying men, for growing there
The yellow apple and the painted pear,
And well-filled golden cups of oranges
Hung amid groves of pointed cypress trees;
On grassy slopes the twining vine-boughs grew,
And hoary olives 'twixt far mountains blue,
And many-coloured flowers, like as a cloud
The rugged southern cliffs did softly shroud;
And many a green-necked bird sung to his mate
Within the slim-leaved, thorny pomegranate,
That flung its unstrung rubies on the grass,
And slowly o'er the place the wind did pass
Heavy with many odours that it bore
From thymy hills down to the sea-beat shore,
Because no flower there is, that all the year,
From spring to autumn, beareth otherwhere,
But there it flourished; nor the fruit alone
From 'twixt the green leaves and the boughs outshone,
For there each tree was ever flowering.
Nor was there lacking many a living thing
Changed of its nature; for the roebuck there
Walked fearless with the tiger; and the bear
Rolled sleepily upon the fruit-strawn grass,
Letting the conies o'er his rough hide pass,
With blinking eyes, that meant no treachery.
Careless the partridge passed the red fox by;
Untouched the serpent left the thrushes brown,
And as a picture was the lion's frown.
But in the midst there was a grassy space,
Raised somewhat over all the flowery place,
On marble terrace-walls wrought like a dream;
And round about it ran a clear blue stream,
Bridged o'er with marble steps, and midmost there
Grew a green tree, whose smooth grey boughs did bear
Such fruit as never man elsewhere had seen,
For 'twixt the sunlight and the shadow green
Shone out fair apples of red gleaming gold.
Moreover round the tree, in many a fold,
Lay coiled a dragon, glittering little less
Than that which his eternal watchfulness
Was set to guard; nor yet was he alone,
For from the daisied grass about him shone
Gold raiment wrapping round two damsels fair,
And one upon the steps combed out her hair,
And with shut eyes sung low as in a dream;
And one stood naked in the cold blue stream,
While on the bank her golden raiment lay;
But on that noontide of the quivering day,
She only, hearing the seafarers' shout,
Her lovely golden head had turned about,
And seen their white sail flapping o'er the wall,
And as she turned had let her tresses fall,
Which the thin water rippling round her knee
Bore outward from her toward the restless sea.
Not long she stood, but looking seaward yet,
From out the water made good haste to get,
And catching up her raiment hastily,
Ran up the marble stair, and 'gan to cry:
"Wake, O my sisters, wake, for now are come
The thieves of Aea to our peaceful home."
Then at her voice they gat them to their feet,
And when her raiment all her body sweet
Once more had hidden, joining hand to hand,
About the sacred apples did they stand,
While coiled the dragon closer to the tree,
And raised his head above them threateningly.
Meanwhile, from Argo many a sea-beat face
Gazed longingly upon that lovely place,
And some their eager hands already laid
Upon the gangway. Then Medea said:--
"Get back unto the oars, O Minyae,
Nor loiter here, for what have such as we
To do herein, where, 'mid undying trees,
Undying watch the wise Hesperides,
And where the while they watch, scarce can a God
Set foot upon the fruit-besprinkled sod
That no snow ever covers? therefore haste,
Nor yet in wondering your fair lives waste;
For these are as the Gods, nor think of us,
Nor to their eyes can aught be glorious
That son of man can do; would God that I
Could see far off the misty headland lie,
Where we the guilt of blood shall wash away,
For I grow weary of the dashing spray,
And ceaseless roll of interwoven seas,
And fain were sitting 'neath the whispering trees
In homely places, where the children play,
Who change like me, grow old, and die some day."
She ceased, and little soothly did they grieve,
For all its loveliness, that land to leave,
For now some God had chilled their hardihead,
And in their hearts had set a sacred dread,
They knew not why; but on their oars they hung,
A little longer as the sisters sung.
"O ye, who to this place have strayed,
That never for man's eyes was made,
Depart in haste, as ye have come,
And bear back to your sea-beat home
This memory of the age of gold,
And for your eyes, grown over-bold,
Your hearts shall pay in sorrowing,
For want of many a half-seen thing.
"Lo, such as is this garden green,
In days past, all the world has been,
And what we know all people knew,
Save this, that unto worse all grew.
"But since the golden age is gone,
This little place is left alone,
Unchanged, unchanging, watched of us,
The daughters of wise Hesperus.
"Surely the heavenly Messenger
Full oft is fain to enter here,
And yet without must he abide;
Nor longeth less the dark king's bride
To set red lips unto that fruit
That erst made nought her mother's suit.
Here would Diana rest awhile,
Forgetful of her woodland guile,
Among these beasts that fear her nought.
Nor is it less in Pallas' thought,
Beneath our trees to ponder o'er
The wide, unfathomed sea of lore;
And oft-kissed Citheraea, no less
Weary of love, full fain would press
These flowers with soft unsandalled feet.
"But unto us our rest is sweet,
Neither shall any man or God
Or lovely Goddess touch the sod
Where-under old times buried lie,
Before the world knew misery.
Nor will we have a slave or king,
Nor yet will we learn anything
But that we know, that makes us glad;
While oft the very Gods are sad
With knowing what the Fates shall do.
"Neither from us shall wisdom go
To fill the hungering hearts of men,
Lest to them threescore years and ten
Come but to seem a little day,
Once given, and taken soon away.
Nay, rather let them find their life
Bitter and sweet, fulfilled of strife,
Restless with hope, vain with regret,
Trembling with fear, most strangely set
'Twixt memory and forgetfulness;
So more shall joy be, troubles less,
And surely when all this is past,
They shall not want their rest at last.
"Let earth and heaven go on their way,
While still we watch from day to day,
In this green place left all alone,
A remnant of the days long gone."
There in the wind they hung, as word by word
The clear-voiced singers silently they heard;
But when the air was barren of their song,
Anigh the shore they durst not linger long,
So northward turned forewearied Argo's head,
And dipping oars, from that fair country sped,
Fulfilled of new desires and pensive thought,
Which that day's life unto their hearts had brought.
Then hard they toiled upon the bitter sea,
And in two days they did not fail to be
In sight of land, a headland high and blue
Which straight Milesian Erginus knew
To be the fateful place which now they sought,
Stormy Malea, so thitherward they brought
The groaning ship, and, casting anchor, lay
Beneath that headland's lee, within a bay,
Wherefrom the more part landed, and their feet
Once more the happy soil of Greece did meet.
Therewith they failed not to bring ashore
Rich robes of price and of fair arms good store,
And gold and silver, that they there might buy
What yet they lacked for their solemnity;
Then, while upon the highest point of land
Some built an altar, Jason, with a band
Of all the chiefest of the Minyae,
Turned inland from the murmur of the sea.
Not far they went ere by a little stream
Down in a valley they could see the gleam
Of brazen pillars and fair-gilded vanes,
And, dropping down by dank dark-wooded lanes
From off the hill-side, reached a house at last
Where in and out men-slaves and women passed,
And guests were streaming fast into the hall,
Where now the oaken boards were laid for all.
With these the Minyae went, and soon they were
Within a pillared hall both great and fair,
Where folk already sat beside the board,
And on the dais was an ancient lord.
But when these saw the fearless Minyae
Glittering in arms, they sprang up hastily,
And each man turned about unto the wall
To seize his spear or staff: then through the hall
Jason cried out: "Laconians, fear ye not,
Nor leave the flesh-meat while it reeketh hot
For dread of us, for we are men as ye,
And come from Aea to the land of Greece,
And in my ship bear back the Golden Fleece,
And a fair Colchian queen to fill my bed.
And now we pray to share your wine and bread,
And other things we need, and at our hands
That ye will take fair things of many lands."
"Sirs," said the ancient lord, "be welcome here,
Come up and sit by me, and make such cheer
As here ye can: glad am I that to me
The first of Grecian men from off the sea
Ye now are come."
Therewith the great hall rang
With joyful shouts, and as, with clash and clang
Of well-wrought arms, up to the dais they went,
All eyes upon the Minyae were bent,
Nor could they have enough of wondering
At this or that sea-tossed victorious king.
So with the strangers there they held high feast,
And afterwards the slaves drove many a beast
Down to the shore, and carried back again
Great store of precious things in pack and wain;
Wrought gold and silver, gems, full many a bale
Of scarlet cloth, and fine silk, fit to veil
The perfect limbs of dreaded Goddesses;
Spices fresh-gathered from the outland trees,
And arms well-wrought, and precious scarce-known wine,
And carven images well-nigh divine.
So when all folk with these were satisfied,
Back went the Minyae to the water-side,
And with them that old lord, fain to behold
And so aboard amid the oars he lay
Throughout the night, and at the dawn of day
Did all men land, nor spared that day to wear
The best of all they had of gold-wrought gear,
And every one, being crowned with olive grey,
Up to the headland did they take their way,
Where now already stood the crowned priests
About the altars by the gilt-horned beasts.
There, as the fair sun rose, did Jason break
Over the altar the thin barley-cake,
And cast the salt abroad, and there were slain
The milk-white bulls, and there red wine did rain
On to the fire from out the ancient jar,
And high rose up the red flame, seen afar
From many another headland of that shore:
But over all its crackling and its roar
Uprose from time to time a joyous song,
That on the summer morning lay for long,
The mighty voices of the Minyae
Exulting o'er the tossing conquered sea,
That far below thrust on by tide and wind
The crumbling bases of the headland mined.
Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.
But rather, when aweary of your mirth,
From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh,
And, feeling kindly unto all the earth,
Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days die--
--Remember me a little then I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.
The heavy trouble, the bewildering care
That weighs us down who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear;
So let me sing of names remembered,
Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead,
Or long time take their memory quite away
From us poor singers of an empty day.
Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate
To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.
Folk say, a wizard to a northern king
At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show,
That through one window men beheld the spring,
And through another saw the summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines a-row,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day.
So with this Earthly Paradise it is,
If ye will read aright, and pardon me,
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss
Midmost the beating of the steely sea,
Where tossed about all hearts of men must be:
Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,
Not the poor singer of an empty day.
Forget six counties overhung with smoke,
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,
Forget the spreading of the hideous town;
Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,
And dream of London, small, and white, and clean,
The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green;
Think, that below bridge the green lapping waves
Smite some few keels that bear Levantine staves,
Cut from the yew wood on the burnt-up hill,
And pointed jars that Greek hands toiled to fill,
And treasured scanty spice from some far sea,
Florence gold cloth, and Ypres napery,
And cloth of Bruges, and hogsheads of Guienne;
While nigh the thronged wharf Geoffrey Chaucer's pen
Moves over bills of lading--mid such times
Shall dwell the hollow puppets of my rhymes.
A nameless city in a distant sea,
White as the changing walls of faerie,
Thronged with much people clad in ancient guise
I now am fain to set before your eyes;
There, leave the clear green water and the quays,
And pass betwixt its marble palaces,
Until ye come unto the chiefest square;
A bubbling conduit is set midmost there,
And round about it now the maidens throng,
With jest and laughter, and sweet broken song,
Making but light of labour new begun
While in their vessels gleams the morning sun.
On one side of the square a temple stands,
Wherein the gods worshipped in ancient lands
Still have their altars, a great market-place
Upon two other sides fills all the space,
And thence the busy hum of men comes forth;
But on the cold side looking toward the north
A pillared council-house may you behold,
Within whose porch are images of gold,
Gods of the nations who dwelt anciently
About the borders of the Grecian sea.
Pass now between them, push the brazen door,
And standing on the polished marble floor
Leave all the noises of the square behind;
Most calm that reverent chamber shall ye find,
Silent at first, but for the noise you made
When on the brazen door your hand you laid
To shut it after you--but now behold
The city rulers on their thrones of gold,
Clad in most fair attire, and in their hands
Long carven silver-banded ebony wands;
Then from the dais drop your eyes and see
Soldiers and peasants standing reverently
Before those elders, round a little band
Who bear such arms as guard the English land,
But battered, rent, and rusted sore, and they,
The men themselves, are shrivelled, bent, and grey;
And as they lean with pain upon their spears
Their brows seem furrowed deep with more than years;
For sorrow dulls their heavy sunken eyes,
Bent are they less with time than miseries.
Pondering on them the city grey-beards gaze
Through kindly eyes, midst thoughts of other days,
And pity for poor souls, and vague regret
For all the things that might have happened yet,
Until, their wonder gathering to a head,
The wisest man, who long that land has led,
Breaks the deep silence, unto whom again
A wanderer answers. Slowly as in pain,
And with a hollow voice as from a tomb
At first he tells the story of his doom,
But as it grows and once more hopes and fears,
Both measureless, are ringing round his ears,
His eyes grow bright, his seeming days decrease,
For grief once told brings somewhat back of peace.
From what unheard-of world, in what strange keel,
Have ye come hither to our commonweal?
No barbarous race, as these our peasants say,
But learned in memories of a long-past day,
Speaking, some few at least, the ancient tongue
That through the lapse of ages still has clung
To us, the seed of the Ionian race.
Speak out and fear not; if ye need a place
Wherein to pass the end of life away,
That shall ye gain from us from this same day,
Unless the enemies of God ye are;
We fear not you and yours to bear us war,
And scarce can think that ye will try again
Across the perils of the shifting plain
To seek your own land whereso that may be:
For folk of ours bearing the memory
Of our old land, in days past oft have striven
To reach it, unto none of whom was given
To come again and tell us of the tale,
Therefore our ships are now content to sail,
About these happy islands that we know.
Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe,
A tale of folly and of wasted life,
Hope against hope, the bitter dregs of strife,
Ending, where all things end, in death at last:
So if I tell the story of the past,
Let it be worth some little rest, I pray,
A little slumber ere the end of day.
No wonder if the Grecian tongue I know,
Since at Byzantium many a year ago
My father bore the twibil valiantly;
There did he marry, and get me, and die,
And I went back to Norway to my kin,
Long ere this beard ye see did first begin
To shade my mouth, but nathless not before
Among the Greeks I gathered some small lore,
And standing midst the Vaeringers, still heard
From this or that man many a wondrous word;
For ye shall know that though we worshipped God,
And heard mass duly, still of Swithiod
The Greater, Odin and his house of gold,
The noble stories ceased not to be told;
These moved me more than words of mine can say
E'en while at Micklegarth my folks did stay;
But when I reached one dying autumn-tide
My uncle's dwelling near the forest side,
And saw the land so scanty and so bare,
And all the hard things men contend with there,
A little and unworthy land it seemed,
And yet the more of Asagard I dreamed,
And worthier seemed the ancient faith of praise.
But now, but now--when one of all those days
Like Lazarus' finger on my heart should be
Breaking the fiery fixed eternity,
But for one moment--could I see once more
The grey-roofed sea-port sloping towards the shore,
Or note the brown boats standing in from sea,
Or the great dromond swinging from the quay,
Or in the beech-woods watch the screaming jay
Shoot up betwixt the tall trunks, smooth and grey--
Yea, could I see the days before distress
When very longing was but happiness.
Within our house there was a Breton squire
Well learned, who fail'd not to fan the fire
That evermore unholpen burned in me
Strange lands and things beyond belief to see;
Much lore of many lands this Breton knew;
And for one tale I told, he told me two.
He, counting Asagard a new-told thing,
Yet spoke of gardens ever blossoming
Across the western sea where none grew old,
E'en as the books at Micklegarth had told,
And said moreover that an English knight
Had had the Earthly Paradise in sight,
And heard the songs of those that dwelt therein.
But entered not, being hindered by his sin.
Shortly, so much of this and that he said
That in my heart the sharp barb entered,
And like real life would empty stories seem,
And life from day to day an empty dream.
Another man there was, a Swabian priest,
Who knew the maladies of man and beast,
And what things helped them; he the stone still sought
Whereby base metal into gold is brought,
And strove to gain the precious draught, whereby
Men live midst mortal men yet never die;
Tales of the Kaiser Redbeard could he tell
Who neither went to Heaven nor yet to Hell,
When from that fight upon the Asian plain
He vanished, but still lives to come again
Men know not how or when; but I listening
Unto this tale thought it a certain thing
That in some hidden vale of Swithiod
Across the golden pavement still he trod.
But while our longing for such things so grew,
And ever more and more we deemed them true,
Upon the land a pestilence there fell
Unheard of yet in any chronicle,
And, as the people died full fast of it,
With these two men it chanced me once to sit,
This learned squire whose name was Nicholas,
And Swabian Laurence, as our manner was;
For could we help it scarcely did we part
From dawn to dusk: so heavy, sad at heart,
We from the castle-yard beheld the bay
Upon that ne'er-to-be-forgotten day,
Little we said amidst that dreary mood,
And certes nought that we could say was good.
It was a bright September afternoon,
The parched-up beech-trees would be yellowing soon
The yellow flowers grown deeper with the sun
Were letting fall their petals one by one;
No wind there was, a haze was gathering o'er
The furthest bound of the faint yellow shore;
And in the oily waters of the bay
Scarce moving aught some fisher-cobles lay,
And all seemed peace; and had been peace indeed
But that we young men of our life had need,
And to our listening ears a sound was borne
That made the sunlight wretched and forlorn--
--The heavy tolling of the minster bell--
And nigher yet a tinkling sound did tell
That through the streets they bore our Saviour Christ
By dying lips in anguish to be kissed.
At last spoke Nicholas, "How long shall we
Abide here, looking forth into the sea
Expecting when our turn shall come to die?
Fair fellows, will ye come with me and try
Now at our worst that long-desired quest,
Now--when our worst is death, and life our best."
"Nay, but thou know'st," I said, "that I but wait
The coming of some man, the turn of fate,
To make this voyage--but I die meanwhile,
For I am poor, though my blood be not vile,
Nor yet for all his lore doth Laurence hold
Within his crucibles aught like to gold;
And what hast thou, whose father driven forth
By Charles of Blois, found shelter in the North?
But little riches as I needs must deem."
"Well," said he, "things are better than they seem,
For 'neath my bed an iron chest I have
That holdeth things I have made shift to save
E'en for this end; moreover, hark to this,
In the next firth a fair long ship there is
Well victualled, ready even now for sea,
And I may say it 'longeth unto me;
Since Marcus Erling, late its owner, lies
Dead at the end of many miseries,
And little Kirstin, as thou well mayst know,
Would be content throughout the world to go
If I but took her hand, and now still more
Hath heart to leave this poor death-stricken shore.
Therefore my gold shall buy us Bordeaux swords
And Bordeaux wine as we go oceanwards.
"What say ye, will ye go with me to-night,
Setting your faces to undreamed delight,
Turning your backs unto this troublous hell,
Or is the time too short to say farewell?"
"Not so," I said, "rather would I depart
Now while thou speakest, never has my heart
Been set on anything within this land."
Then said the Swabian, "Let us now take hand
And swear to follow evermore this quest
Till death or life have set our hearts at rest."
So with joined hands we swore, and Nicholas said,
"To-night, fair friends, be ye apparelled
To leave this land, bring all the arms ye can
And such men as ye trust, my own good man
Guards the small postern looking towards St. Bride,
And good it were ye should not be espied,
Since mayhap freely ye should not go hence,
Thou Rolf in special, for this pestilence
Makes all men hard and cruel, nor are they
Willing that folk should 'scape if they must stay:
Be wise; I bid you for a while farewell,
Leave ye this stronghold when St. Peter's bell
Strikes midnight, all will surely then be still,
And I will bide you at King Tryggve's hill
Outside the city gates."
Each went his way
Therewith, and I the remnant of that day
Gained for the quest three men that I deemed true,
And did such other things as I must do,
And still was ever listening for the chime
Half maddened by the lazy lapse of time,
Yea, scarce I thought indeed that I should live
Till the great tower the joyful sound should give
That set us free: and so the hours went past,
Till startled by the echoing clang at last
That told of midnight, armed from head to heel
Down to the open postern did I steal,
Bearing small wealth--this sword that yet hangs here
Worn thin and narrow with so many a year,
My father's axe that from Byzantium,
With some few gems my pouch yet held, had come,
Nought else that shone with silver or with gold.
But by the postern gate could I behold
Laurence the priest all armed as if for war,
From off the town-wall, having some small store
Of arms and furs and raiment: then once more
I turned, and saw the autumn moonlight fall
Upon the new-built bastions of the wall,
Strange with black shadow and grey flood of light,
And further off I saw the lead shine bright
On tower and turret-roof against the sky,
And looking down I saw the old town lie
Black in the shade of the o'er-hanging hill,
Stricken with death, and dreary, but all still
Until it reached the water of the bay,
That in the dead night smote against the quay
Not all unheard, though there was little wind.
But as I turned to leave the place behind,
The wind's light sound, the slowly falling swell,
Were hushed at once by that shrill-tinkling bell,
That in that stillness jarring on mine ears,
With sudden jangle checked the rising tears,
And now the freshness of the open sea
Seemed ease and joy and very life to me.
So greeting my new mates with little sound,
We made good haste to reach King Tryggve's mound,
And there the Breton Nicholas beheld,
Who by the hand fair Kirstin Erling held,
And round about them twenty men there stood,
Of whom the more part on the holy rood
Were sworn till death to follow up the quest,
And Kirstin was the mistress of the rest.
Again betwixt us was there little speech,
But swiftly did we set on toward the beach,
And coming there our keel, the Fighting Man,
We boarded, and the long oars out we ran,
And swept from out the firth, and sped so well
That scarcely could we hear St. Peter's bell
Toll one, although the light wind blew from land;
Then hoisting sail southward we 'gan to stand,
And much I joyed beneath the moon to see
The lessening land that might have been to me
A kindly giver of wife, child, and friend,
And happy life, or at the worser end
A quiet grave till doomsday rend the earth.
Night passed, day dawned, and we grew full of mirth
As with the ever-rising morning wind
Still further lay our threatened death behind,
Or so we thought: some eighty men we were,
Of whom but fifty knew the shipman's gear,
The rest were uplanders; midst such of these
As knew not of our quest, with promises
Went Nicholas dealing florins round about,
With still a fresh tale for each new man's doubt,
Till all were fairly won or seemed to be
To that strange desperate voyage o'er the sea.
Within some Danish city by the sea,
Whose name, changed now, is all unknown to me,
Great mourning was there one fair summer eve,
Because the angels, bidden to receive
The fair Queen's lovely soul in Paradise,
Had done their bidding, and in royal guise
Her helpless body, once the prize of love,
Unable now for fear or hope to move,
Lay underneath the golden canopy;
And bowed down by unkingly misery
The King sat by it, and not far away,
Within the chamber a fair man-child lay,
His mother's bane, the king that was to be,
Not witting yet of any royalty,
Harmless and loved, although so new to life.
Calm the June evening was, no sign of strife
The clear sky showed, no storm grew round the sun,
Unhappy that his day of bliss was done;
'Twas with the nestling of the grey-winged bird
Midst its thick leaves; and though the nightingale
Her ancient, hapless sorrow must bewail,
No more of woe there seemed in her song
Than such as doth to lovers' words belong,
Because their love is still unsatisfied.
But to the King, on that sweet eventide,
No earth there seemed, no heaven when earth was gone;
No help, no God! but lonely pain alone;
And he, midst unreal shadows, seemed to sit
Himself the very heart and soul of it.
But round the cradle of the new-born child
The nurses now the weary time beguiled
With stories of the just departed Queen;
And how, amid the heathen folk first seen,
She had been won to love and godliness;
And as they spoke, e'en midst his dull distress,
An eager whisper now and then would smite
Upon the King's ear, of some past delight,
Some once familiar name, and he would raise
His weary head, and on the speaker gaze
Like one about to speak, but soon again
Would drop his head and be alone with pain,
Nor think of these; who, silent in their turn,
Would sit and watch the waxen tapers burn
Amidst the dusk of the quick-gathering night,
Until beneath the high stars' glimmering light,
The fresh earth lay in colourless repose.
So passed the night, and now and then one rose
From out her place to do what might avail
To still the new-born infant's fretful wail;
Or through the softly-opened door there came
Some nurse new waked, who, whispering low the name
Of her whose turn was come, would take her place;
Then toward the King would turn about her face
And to her fellows whisper of the day,
And tell again of her just past away.
So passed the night, the moon arose and grew,
From off the sea a little west-wind blew,
Rustling the garden-leaves like sudden rain;
And ere the moon had 'gun to fall again
The wind grew cold, a change was in the sky,
And in deep silence did the dawn draw nigh;
Then from her place a nurse arose to light
Fresh hallowed lights, for, dying with the night,
The tapers round about the dead Queen were;
But the King raised his head and 'gan to stare
Upon her, as her sweeping gown did glide
About the floor, that in the stillness cried
Beneath her careful feet; and now as she
Had lit the second candle carefully,
And on its silver spike another one
Was setting, through her body did there run
A sudden tremor, and the hand was stayed
That on the dainty painted wax was laid;
Her eyelids fell down and she seemed to sleep,
And o'er the staring King began to creep
Sweet slumber too; the bitter lines of woe
That drew his weary face did softer grow,
His eyelids dropped, his arms fell to his side;
And moveless in their places did abide
The nursing women, held by some strong spell,
E'en as they were, and utter silence fell
Upon the mournful, glimmering chamber fair.
But now light footsteps coming up the stair,
Smote on the deadly stillness, and the sound
Of silken dresses trailing o'er the ground;
And heavenly odours through the chamber passed,
Unlike the scents that rose and lily cast
Upon the freshness of the dying night;
Then nigher drew the sound of footsteps light
Until the door swung open noiselessly--
A mass of sunlit flowers there seemed to be
Within the doorway, and but pale and wan
The flame showed now that serveth mortal man,
As one by one six seeming ladies passed
Into the room, and o'er its sorrow cast
That thoughtless sense of joy bewildering,
That kisses youthful hearts amidst of spring;
Crowned were they, in such glorious raiment clad,
As yet no merchant of the world has had
Within his coffers; yet those crowns seemed fair
Only because they kissed their odorous hair,
And all that flowery raiment was but blessed
By those fair bodies that its splendour pressed.
Now to the cradle from that glorious band,
A woman passed, and laid a tender hand
Upon the babe, and gently drew aside
The swathings soft that did his body hide;
And, seeing him so fair and great, she smiled,
And stooped, and kissed him, saying, "O noble child,
Have thou a gift from Gloriande this day;
For to the time when life shall pass away
From this dear heart, no fear of death or shame,
No weariness of good shall foul thy name."
So saying, to her sisters she returned;
And one came forth, upon whose brow there burned
A crown of rubies, and whose heaving breast
With happy rings a golden hauberk pressed;
She took the babe, and somewhat frowning said,
"This gift I give, that till thy limbs are laid
At rest for ever, to thine honoured life
There never shall be lacking war and strife,
That thou a long-enduring name mayst win,
And by thy deeds, good pardon for thy sin."
With that another, who, unseen, meanwhile
Had drawn anigh, said with a joyous smile,
"And this forgotten gift to thee I give,
That while amidst the turmoil thou dost live,
Still shalt thou win the game, and unto thee
Defeat and shame but idle words shall be."
Then back they turned, and therewithal, the fourth
Said, "Take this gift for what it may be worth
For that is mine to give; lo, thou shalt be
Gentle of speech, and in all courtesy
The first of men: a little gift this is,
After these promises of fame and bliss."
Then toward the babe the fifth fair woman went;
Grey-eyed she was, and simple, with eyes bent
Down on the floor, parted her red lips were,
And o'er her sweet face marvellously fair
Oft would the colour spread full suddenly;
Clad in a dainty gown and thin was she,
For some green summer of the fay-land dight,
Tripping she went, and laid her fingers light
Upon the child, and said, "O little one,
As long as thou shalt look upon the sun
Shall women long for thee; take heed to this
And give them what thou canst of love and bliss."
Then, blushing for her words, therefrom she past,
And by the cradle stood the sixth and last,
The fairest of them all; awhile she gazed
Down on the child, and then her hand she raised,
And made the one side of her bosom bare;
"Ogier," she said, "if this be foul or fair
Thou know'st not now, but when thine earthly life
Is drunk out to the dregs, and war and strife
Have yielded thee whatever joy they may,
Thine head upon this bosom shalt thou lay;
And then, despite of knowledge or of God,
Will we be glad upon the flowery sod
Within the happy country where I dwell:
Ogier, my love that is to be, farewell!"
She turned, and even as they came they passed
From out the place, and reached the gate at last
That oped before their feet, and speedily
They gained the edges of the murmuring sea,
And as they stood in silence, gazing there
Out to the west, they vanished into air,
I know not how, nor whereto they returned.
But mixed with twilight in the chamber burned
The flickering candles, and those dreary folk,
Unlike to sleepers, from their trance awoke,
But nought of what had happed meanwhile they knew.
Through the half-opened casements now there blew
A sweet fresh air, that of the flowers and sea
Mingled together, smelt deliciously,
And from the unseen sun the spreading light
Began to make the fair June blossoms bright,
And midst their weary woe uprose the sun,
And thus has Ogier's noble life begun.
Hope is our life, when first our life grows clear;
Hope and delight, scarce crossed by lines of fear,
Yet the day comes when fain we would not hope,
But forasmuch as we with life must cope,
Struggling with this and that, and who knows why?
Hope will not give us up to certainty,
But still must bide with us: and with this man,
Whose life amid such promises began
Great things she wrought; but now the time has come
When he no more on earth may have his home.
Great things he suffered, great delights he had,
Unto great kings he gave good deeds for bad;
He ruled o'er kingdoms where his name no more
Is had in memory, and on many a shore
He left his sweat and blood to win a name
Passing the bounds of earthly creatures' fame.
A love he won and lost, a well-loved son
Whose little day of promise soon was done:
A tender wife he had, that he must leave
Before his heart her love could well receive;
Those promised gifts, that on his careless head
In those first hours of his fair life were shed
He took unwitting, and unwitting spent,
Nor gave himself to grief and discontent
Because he saw the end a-drawing nigh.
Where is he now? in what land must he die,
To leave an empty name to us on earth?
A tale half true, to cast across our mirth
Some pensive thoughts of life that might have been;
Where is he now, that all this life has seen?
Behold, another eve I bid you see
Than that calm eve of his nativity;
The sun is setting in the west, the sky
Is clear and hard, and no clouds come anigh
The golden orb, but further off they lie,
Steel-grey and black with edges red as blood,
And underneath them is the weltering flood
Of some huge sea, whose tumbling hills, as they
Turn restless sides about, are black or grey,
Or green, or glittering with the golden flame;
The wind has fallen now, but still the same
The mighty army moves, as if to drown
This lone, bare rock, whose shear scarped sides of brown
Cast off the weight of waves in clouds of spray.
Alas! what ships upon an evil day
Bent over to the wind in this ill sea?
What navy, whose rent bones lie wretchedly
Beneath these cliffs? a mighty one it was,
A fearful storm to bring such things to pass.
This is the loadstone rock; no armament
Of warring nations, in their madness bent
Their course this way; no merchant wittingly
Has steered his keel unto this luckless sea;
Upon no shipman's card its name is writ,
Though worn-out mariners will speak of it
Within the ingle on the winter's night,
When all within is warm and safe and bright,
And the wind howls without: but 'gainst their will
Are some folk driven here, and then all skill
Against this evil rock is vain and nought,
And unto death the shipmen soon are brought;
For then the keel, as by a giant's hand,
Is drawn unto that mockery of a land,
And presently unto its sides doth cleave;
When if they 'scape swift death, yet none may leave
The narrow limits of that barren isle,
And thus are slain by famine in a while
Mocked, as they say, by night with images
Of noble castles among groves of trees,
By day with sounds of merry minstrelsy.
The sun sinks now below this hopeless sea,
The clouds are gone, and all the sky is bright;
The moon is rising o'er the growing night,
And by its light may ye behold the bones
Of generations of these luckless ones
Scattered about the rock; but nigh the sea
Sits one alive, who uncomplainingly
Awaits his death. White-haired is he and old,
Arrayed in royal raiment, bright with gold,
But tarnished with the waves and rough salt air;
Huge is he, of a noble face and fair,
As for an ancient man, though toil and eld
Furrow the cheeks that ladies once beheld
With melting hearts--Nay, listen, for he speaks!
"God, thou hast made me strong! nigh seven weeks
Have passed since from the wreck we haled our store,
And five long days well told, have now passed o'er
Since my last fellow died, with my last bread
Between his teeth, and yet I am not dead.
Yea, but for this I had been strong enow
In some last bloody field my sword to show.
What matter? soon will all be past and done,
Where'er I died I must have died alone:
Yet, Caraheu, a good death had it been
Dying, thy face above me to have seen,
And heard my banner flapping in the wind,
Then, though my memory had not left thy mind,
Yet hope and fear would not have vexed thee more
When thou hadst known that everything was o'er;
But now thou waitest, still expecting me,
Whose sail shall never speck thy bright blue sea.
"And thou, Clarice, the merchants thou mayst call,
To tell thee tales within thy pictured hall,
But never shall they tell true tales of me:
Whatever sails the Kentish hills may see
Swept by the flood-tide toward thy well-walled town,
No more on my sails shall they look adown.
"Get thee another leader, Charlemaine,
For thou shalt look to see my shield in vain,
When in the fair fields of the Frankish land,
Thick as the corn they tread, the heathen stand.
"What matter? ye shall learn to live your lives;
Husbands and children, other friends and wives,
Shall wipe the tablets of your memory clean,
And all shall be as I had never been.
"And now, O God, am I alone with Thee;
A little thing indeed it seems to be
To give this life up, since it needs must go
Some time or other; now at last I know
How foolishly men play upon the earth,
When unto them a year of life seems worth
Honour and friends, and these vague hopes and sweet
That like real things my dying heart do greet,
Unreal while living on the earth I trod,
And but myself I knew no other god.
Behold, I thank Thee that Thou sweet'nest thus
This end, that I had thought most piteous,
If of another I had heard it told."
What man is this, who weak and worn and old,
Gives up his life within that dreadful isle,
And on the fearful coming death can smile?
Alas! this man, so battered and outworn,
Is none but he, who, on that summer morn,
Received such promises of glorious life:
Ogier the Dane this is, to whom all strife
Was but as wine to stir awhile the blood,
To whom all life, however hard, was good:
This is the man, unmatched of heart and limb,
Ogier the Dane, whose sight has waxed not dim
For all the years that he on earth has dwelt;
Ogier the Dane, that never fear has felt,
Since he knew good from ill; Ogier the Dane,
The heathen's dread, the evil-doer's bane.
Bright had the moon grown as his words were done,
And no more was there memory of the sun
Within the west, and he grew drowsy now,
And somewhat smoother was his wrinkled brow
As thought died out beneath the hand of sleep,
And o'er his soul forgetfulness did creep,
Hiding the image of swift-coming death;
Until as peacefully he drew his breath
As on that day, past for a hundred years,
When, midst the nurse's quickly-falling tears,
He fell asleep to his first lullaby.
The night changed as he slept, white clouds and high
Began about the lonely moon to close;
And from the dark west a new wind arose,
And with the sound of heavy-falling waves
Mingled its pipe about the loadstone caves;
But when the twinkling stars were hid away,
And a faint light and broad, like dawn of day,
The moon upon that dreary country shed,
Ogier awoke, and lifting up his head
And smiling, muttered, "Nay, no more again;
Rather some pleasure new, some other pain,
Unthought of both, some other form of strife;"
For he had waked from dreams of his old life,
And through St. Omer's archer-guarded gate
Once more had seemed to pass, and saw the state
Of that triumphant king; and still, though all
Seemed changed, and folk by other names did call
Faces he knew of old, yet none the less
He seemed the same, and, midst that mightiness,
Felt his own power, and grew the more athirst
For coming glory, as of old, when first
He stood before the face of Charlemaine,
A helpless hostage with all life to gain.
But now, awake, his worn face once more sank
Between his hands, and, murmuring not, he drank
The draught of death that must that thirst allay.
But while he sat and waited for the day
A sudden light across the bare rock streamed,
Which at the first he noted not, but deemed
The moon her fleecy veil had broken through;
But ruddier indeed this new light grew
Than were the moon's grey beams, and, therewithal,
Soft far-off music on his ears did fall;
Yet moved he not, but murmured, "This is death,
An easy thing like this to yield my breath,
Awake, yet dreaming, with no sounds of fear,
No dreadful sights to tell me it is near;
Yea, God, I thank Thee!" but with that last word
It seemed to him that he his own name heard
Whispered, as though the wind had borne it past;
With that he gat unto his feet at last,
But still awhile he stood, with sunken head,
And in a low and trembling voice he said,
"Lord, I am ready, whither shall I go?
I pray Thee unto me some token show."
And, as he said this, round about he turned,
And in the east beheld a light that burned
As bright as day; then, though his flesh might fear
The coming change that he believed so near,
Yet did his soul rejoice, for now he thought
Unto the very heaven to be brought:
And though he felt alive, deemed it might be
That he in sleep had died full easily.
Then toward that light did he begin to go,
And still those strains he heard, far off and low,
That grew no louder; still that bright light streamed
Over the rocks, yet nothing brighter seemed,
But like the light of some unseen bright flame
Shone round about, until at last he came
Unto the dreary islet's other shore,
And then the minstrelsy he heard no more,
And softer seemed the strange light unto him;
But yet or ever it had grown quite dim,
Beneath its waning light could he behold
A mighty palace set about with gold,
Above green meads and groves of summer trees
Far-off across the welter of the seas;
But, as he gazed, it faded from his sight,
And the grey hidden moon's diffused soft light,
Which soothly was but darkness to him now,
His sea-girt island prison did but show.
But o'er the sea he still gazed wistfully,
And said, "Alas! and when will this go by
And leave my soul in peace? must I still dream
Of life that once so dear a thing did seem,
That, when I wake, death may the bitterer be?
Here will I sit until he come to me,
And hide mine eyes and think upon my sin,
That so a little calm I yet may win
Before I stand within the awful place."
Then down he sat and covered up his face,
Yet therewithal his trouble could not hide,
Nor waiting thus for death could he abide,
For, though he knew it not, the yearning pain
Of hope of life had touched his soul again--
If he could live awhile, if he could live!
The mighty being, who once was wont to give
The gift of life to many a trembling man;
Who did his own will since his life began;
Who feared not aught, but strong and great and free
Still cast aside the thought of what might be;
Must all this then be lost, and with no will,
Powerless and blind, must he some fate fulfil,
Nor know what he is doing any more?
Soon he arose and paced along the shore,
And gazed out seaward for the blessed light;
But nought he saw except the old sad sight,
The ceaseless tumbling of the billows grey,
The white upspringing of the spurts of spray
Amidst that mass of timbers, the rent bones
Of the sea-houses of the hapless ones
Once cast like him upon this deadly isle.
He stopped his pacing in a little while,
And clenched his mighty hands, and set his teeth,
And gazing at the ruin underneath,
He swung from off the bare cliff's jagged brow,
And on some slippery ledge he wavered now,
Without a hand-hold, and now stoutly clung
With hands alone, and o'er the welter hung,
Not caring aught if thus his life should end;
But safely midst all this did he descend
The dreadful cliff, and since no beach was there,
But from the depths the rock rose stark and bare,
Nor crumbled aught beneath the hammering sea,
Upon the wrecks he stood unsteadily.
But now, amid the clamour of the waves,
And washing to-and-fro of beams and staves,
Dizzy with hunger, dreamy with distress,
And all those days of fear and loneliness,
The ocean's tumult seemed the battle's roar,
His heart grew hot, as when in days of yore
He heard the cymbals clash amid the crowd
Of dusky faces; now he shouted loud,
And from crushed beam to beam began to leap,
And yet his footing somehow did he keep
Amidst their tossing, and indeed the sea
Was somewhat sunk upon the island's lee.
So quickly on from wreck to wreck he passed,
And reached the outer line of wrecks at last,
And there a moment stood unsteadily,
Amid the drift of spray that hurried by,
And drew Courtain his sword from out its sheath,
And poised himself to meet the coming death,
Still looking out to sea; but as he gazed,
And once or twice his doubtful feet he raised
To take the final plunge, that heavenly strain
Over the washing waves he heard again,
And from the dimness something bright he saw
Across the waste of waters towards him draw;
And hidden now, now raised aloft, at last
Unto his very feet a boat was cast,
Gilded inside and out, and well arrayed
With cushions soft; far fitter to have weighed
From some sweet garden on the shallow Seine,
Or in a reach of green Thames to have lain,
Than struggle with that huge confused sea;
But Ogier gazed upon it doubtfully
One moment, and then, sheathing Courtain, said,
"What tales are these about the newly dead
The heathen told? what matter, let all pass;
This moment as one dead indeed I was,
And this must be what I have got to do,
I yet perchance may light on something new
Before I die; though yet perchance this keel
Unto the wondrous mass of charmed steel
Is drawn as others." With that word he leapt
Into the boat, and o'er the cushions crept
From stem to stern, but found no rudder there,
Nor any oars, nor were the cushions fair
Made wet by any dashing of the sea.
Now while he pondered how these things could be,
The boat began to move therefrom at last,
But over him a drowsiness was cast,
And as o'er tumbling hills the skiff did pass,
He clean forgot his death and where he was.
At last he woke up to a sunny day,
And, looking round, saw that his shallop lay
Moored at the edge of some fair tideless sea
Unto an overhanging thick-leaved tree,
Where in the green waves did the low bank dip
Its fresh and green grass-covered daisied lip;
But Ogier looking thence no more could see
That sad abode of death and misery,
Nor aught but wide and empty ocean, grey
With gathering haze, for now it neared midday;
Then from the golden cushions did he rise,
And wondering still if this were Paradise
He stepped ashore, but drew Courtain his sword
And muttered therewithal a holy word.
Fair was the place, as though amidst of May,
Nor did the brown birds fear the sunny day,
For with their quivering song the air was sweet;
Thick grew the field-flowers underneath his feet,
And on his head the blossoms down did rain,
Yet mid these fair things slowly and with pain
He 'gan to go, yea, even when his foot
First touched the flowery sod, to his heart's root
A coldness seemed to strike, and now each limb
Was growing stiff, his eyes waxed bleared and dim,
And all his stored-up memory 'gan to fail,
Nor yet would his once mighty heart avail
For lamentations o'er his changed lot;
Yet urged by some desire, he knew not what,
Along a little path 'twixt hedges sweet,
Drawn sword in hand, he dragged his faltering feet,
For what then seemed to him a weary way,
Whereon his steps he needs must often stay
And lean upon the mighty well-worn sword
That in those hands, grown old, for king or lord
Had small respect in glorious days long past.
But still he crept along, and at the last
Came to a gilded wicket, and through this
Entered a garden fit for utmost bliss,
If that might last which needs must soon go by:
There 'gainst a tree he leaned, and with a sigh
He said, "O God, a sinner I have been,
And good it is that I these things have seen
Before I meet what Thou hast set apart
To cleanse the earthly folly from my heart;
But who within this garden now can dwell
Wherein guilt first upon the world befell?"
A little further yet he staggered on,
Till to a fountain-side at last he won,
O'er which two white-thorns their sweet blossoms shed,
There he sank down, and laid his weary head
Beside the mossy roots, and in a while
He slept, and dreamed himself within the isle;
That splashing fount the weary sea did seem,
And in his dream the fair place but a dream;
But when again to feebleness he woke
Upon his ears that heavenly music broke,
Not faint or far as in the isle it was,
But e'en as though the minstrels now did pass
Anigh his resting-place; then fallen in doubt,
E'en as he might, he rose and gazed about,
Leaning against the hawthorn stem with pain;
And yet his straining gaze was but in vain,
Death stole so fast upon him, and no more
Could he behold the blossoms as before,
No more the trees seemed rooted to the ground,
A heavy mist seemed gathering all around,
And in its heart some bright thing seemed to be,
And round his head there breathed deliciously
Sweet odours, and that music never ceased.
But as the weight of Death's strong hand increased
Again he sank adown, and Courtain's noise
Within the scabbard seemed a farewell voice
Sent from the world he loved so well of old,
And all his life was as a story told,
And as he thought thereof he 'gan to smile
E'en as a child asleep, but in a while
It was as though he slept, and sleeping dreamed,
For in his half-closed eyes a glory gleamed,
As though from some sweet face and golden hair,
And on his breast were laid soft hands and fair,
And a sweet voice was ringing in his ears,
Broken as if with flow of joyous tears;
"Ogier, sweet friend, hast thou not tarried long?
Alas! thine hundred years of strife and wrong!"
Then he found voice to say, "Alas! dear Lord,
Too long, too long; and yet one little word
Right many a year agone had brought me here."
Then to his face that face was drawn anear,
He felt his head raised up and gently laid
On some kind knee, again the sweet voice said,
"Nay, Ogier, nay, not yet, not yet, dear friend!
Who knoweth when our linked life shall end,
Since thou art come unto mine arms at last,
And all the turmoil of the world is past?
Why do I linger ere I see thy face
As I desired it in that mourning place
So many years ago--so many years,
Thou knewest not thy love and all her fears?"
"Alas!" he said, "what mockery is this
That thou wilt speak to me of earthly bliss?
No longer can I think upon the earth,
Have I not done with all its grief and mirth?
Yes, I was Ogier once, but if my love
Should come once more my dying heart to move,
Then must she come from 'neath the milk-white walls
Whereon to-day the hawthorn blossom falls
Outside St. Omer's--art thou she? her name
I could remember once mid death and fame
Is clean forgotten now; but yesterday,
Meseems, our son, upon her bosom lay:
Baldwin the fair--what hast thou done with him
Since Charlot slew him? Ah, mine eyes wax dim;
Woman, forbear! wilt thou not let me die?
Did I forget thee in the days gone by?
Then let me die, that we may meet again!"
He tried to move from her, but all in vain,
For life had well-nigh left him, but withal
He felt a kiss upon his forehead fall,
And could not speak; he felt slim fingers fair
Move to his mighty sword-worn hand, and there
Set on some ring, and still he could not speak,
And once more sleep weighed down his eyelids weak.
But, ah! what land was this he woke unto?
What joy was this that filled his heart anew?
Had he then gained the very Paradise?
Trembling, he durst not at the first arise,
Although no more he felt the pain of eld,
Nor durst he raise his eyes that now beheld
Beside him the white flowers and blades of grass;
He durst not speak, lest he some monster was.
But while he lay and hoped, that gentle voice
Once more he heard; "Yea, thou mayst well rejoice!
Thou livest still, my sweet, thou livest still,
Apart from every earthly fear and ill;
Wilt thou not love me, who have wrought thee this,
That I like thee may live in double bliss?"
Then Ogier rose up, nowise like to one
Whose span of earthly life is nigh outrun,
But as he might have risen in old days
To see the spears cleave the fresh morning haze;
But, looking round, he saw no change there was
In the fair place wherethrough he first did pass,
Though all, grown clear and joyous to his eyes,
Now looked no worse than very Paradise;
Behind him were the thorns, the fountain fair
Still sent its glittering stream forth into air,
And by its basin a fair woman stood,
And as their eyes met his renewed blood
Rushed to his face; with unused thoughts and sweet
And hurrying hopes, his heart began to beat.
The fairest of all creatures did she seem;
So fresh and delicate you well might deem
That scarce for eighteen summers had she blessed
The happy, longing world; yet, for the rest,
Within her glorious eyes such wisdom dwelt
A child before her had the wise man felt,
And with the pleasure of a thousand years
Her lips were fashioned to move joy or tears
Among the longing folk where she might dwell,
To give at last the kiss unspeakable.
In such wise was she clad as folk may be,
Who, for no shame of their humanity,
For no sad changes of the imperfect year,
Rather for added beauty, raiment wear;
For, as the heat-foretelling grey-blue haze
Veils the green flowery morn of late May-days,
Her raiment veiled her; where the bands did meet
That bound the sandals to her dainty feet,
Gems gleamed; a fresh rose-wreath embraced her head,
And on her breast there lay a ruby red.
So with a supplicating look she turned
To meet the flame that in his own eyes burned,
And held out both her white arms lovingly,
As though to greet him as he drew anigh.
Stammering he said, "Who art thou? how am I
So cured of all my evils suddenly,
That certainly I felt no mightier, when,
Amid the backward rush of beaten men,
About me drooped the axe-torn Oriflamme?
Alas! I fear that in some dream I am."
"Ogier," she said, "draw near, perchance it is
That such a name God gives unto our bliss;
I know not, but if thou art such an one
As I must deem, all days beneath the sun
That thou hast had, shall be but dreams indeed
To those that I have given thee at thy need.
For many years ago beside the sea
When thou wert born, I plighted troth with thee:
Come near then, and make mirrors of mine eyes,
That thou mayest see what these my mysteries
Have wrought in thee; surely but thirty years,
Passed amidst joy, thy new born body bears,
Nor while thou art with me, and on this shore
Art still full-fed of love, shalt thou seem more.
Nay, love, come nigher, and let me take thine hand,
The hope and fear of many a warring land,
And I will show thee wherein lies the spell,
Whereby this happy change upon thee fell."
Like a shy youth before some royal love,
Close up to that fair woman did he move,
And their hands met; yet to his changed voice
He dared not trust; nay, scarcely could rejoice
E'en when her balmy breath he 'gan to feel,
And felt strange sweetness o'er his spirit steal
As her light raiment, driven by the wind,
Swept round him, and, bewildered and half-blind,
His lips the treasure of her lips did press,
And round him clung her perfect loveliness.
For one sweet moment thus they stood, and then
She drew herself from out his arms again,
And panting, lovelier for her love, did stand
Apart awhile, then took her lover's hand,
And, in a trembling voice, made haste to say,--
"O Ogier, when thou earnest here to-day,
I feared indeed, that in my sport with fate,
I might have seen thee e'en one day too late,
Before this ring thy finger should embrace;
Behold it, love, and thy keen eyes may trace
Faint figures wrought upon the ruddy gold;
My father dying gave it me, nor told
The manner of its making, but I know
That it can make thee e'en as thou art now
Despite the laws of God--shrink not from me
Because I give an impious gift to thee--
Has not God made me also, who do this?
But I, who longed to share with thee my bliss,
Am of the fays, and live their changeless life,
And, like the gods of old, I see the strife
That moves the world, unmoved if so I will;
For we the fruit, that teaches good and ill,
Have never touched like you of Adam's race;
And while thou dwellest with me in this place
Thus shalt thou be--ah, and thou deem'st, indeed,
That thou shalt gain thereby no happy meed
Reft of the world's joys? nor canst understand
How thou art come into a happy land?--
Love, in thy world the priests of heaven still sing,
And tell thee of it many a joyous thing;
But think'st thou, bearing the world's joy and pain,
Thou couldst live there? nay, nay, but born again
Thus wouldst be happy with the angels' bliss;
And so with us no otherwise it is,
Nor hast thou cast thine old life quite away
Even as yet, though that shall be to-day.
"But for the love and country thou hast won,
Know thou, that thou art come to Avallon,
That is both thine and mine; and as for me,
Morgan le Fay men call me commonly
Within the world, but fairer names than this
I have for thee and me, 'twixt kiss and kiss."
Ah, what was this? and was it all in vain,
That she had brought him here this life to gain?
For, ere her speech was done, like one turned blind
He watched the kisses of the wandering wind
Within her raiment, or as some one sees
The very best of well-wrought images
When he is blind with grief, did he behold
The wandering tresses of her locks of gold
Upon her shoulders; and no more he pressed
The hand that in his own hand lay at rest:
His eyes, grown dull with changing memories,
Could make no answer to her glorious eyes:
Cold waxed his heart, and weary and distraught,
With many a cast-by, hateful, dreary thought,
Unfinished in the old days; and withal
He needs must think of what might chance to fall
In this life new-begun; and good and bad
Tormented him, because as yet he had
A worldly heart within his frame made new,
And to the deeds that he was wont to do
Did his desires still turn. But she a while
Stood gazing at him with a doubtful smile,
And let his hand fall down; but suddenly
Sounded sweet music from some close nearby,
And then she spoke again: "Come, love, with me,
That thou thy new life and delights mayst see."
And gently with that word she led him thence,
And though upon him now there fell a sense
Of dreamy and unreal bewilderment,
As hand in hand through that green place they went,
Yet therewithal a strain of tender love
A little yet his restless heart did move.
So through the whispering trees they came at last
To where a wondrous house a shadow cast
Across the flowers, and o'er the daisied grass
Before it, crowds of lovely folk did pass,
Playing about in carelessness and mirth,
Unshadowed by the doubtful deeds of earth;
And from the midst a band of fair girls came,
With flowers and music, greeting him by name,
And praising him; but ever like a dream
He could not break, did all to Ogier seem,
And he his old world did the more desire,
For in his heart still burned unquenched the fire,
That through the world of old so bright did burn:
Yet was he fain that kindness to return,
And from the depth of his full heart he sighed.
Then toward the house the lovely Queen did guide
His listless steps, and seemed to take no thought
Of knitted brow or wandering eyes distraught,
But still with kind love lighting up her face
She led him through the door of that fair place,
While round about them did the damsels press;
And he was moved by all that loveliness
As one might be, who, lying half asleep
In the May morning, notes the light wind sweep
Over the tulip-beds: no more to him
Were gleaming eyes, red lips, and bodies slim,
Amidst that dream, although the first surprise
Of hurried love wherewith the Queen's sweet eyes
Had smitten him, still in his heart did stir.
And so at last he came, led on by her
Into a hall wherein a fair throne was,
And hand in hand thereto the twain did pass;
And there she bade him sit, and when alone
He took his place upon the double throne,
She cast herself before him on her knees,
Embracing his, and greatly did increase
The shame and love that vexed his troubled heart:
But now a line of girls the crowd did part,
Lovelier than all, and Ogier could behold
One in their midst who bore a crown of gold
Within her slender hands and delicate;
She, drawing nigh, beside the throne did wait
Until the Queen arose and took the crown,
Who then to Ogier's lips did stoop adown
And kissed him, and said, "Ogier, what were worth
Thy miserable days of strife on earth,
That on their ashes still thine eyes are turned?"
Then, as she spoke these words, his changed heart burned
With sudden memories, and thereto had he
Made answer, but she raised up suddenly
The crown she held and set it on his head,
"Ogier," she cried, "those troublous days are dead;
Thou wert dead with them also, but for me;
Turn unto her who wrought these things for thee!"
Then, as he felt her touch, a mighty wave
Of love swept o'er his soul, as though the grave
Did really hold his body; from his seat
He rose to cast himself before her feet;
But she clung round him, and in close embrace
The twain were locked amidst that thronging place.
Thenceforth new life indeed has Ogier won,
And in the happy land of Avallon
Quick glide the years o'er his unchanging head;
There saw he many men the world thought dead,
Living like him in sweet forgetfulness
Of all the troubles that did once oppress
Their vainly-struggling lives--ah, how can I
Tell of their joy as though I had been nigh?
Suffice it that no fear of death they knew,
That there no talk there was of false or true,
Of right or wrong, for traitors came not there;
That everything was bright and soft and fair,
And yet they wearied not for any change,
Nor unto them did constancy seem strange.
Love knew they, but its pain they never had,
But with each other's joy were they made glad;
Nor were their lives wasted by hidden fire,
Nor knew they of the unfulfilled desire
That turns to ashes all the joys of earth,
Nor knew they yearning love amidst the dearth
Of kind and loving hearts to spend it on,
Nor dreamed or discontent when all was won;
Nor need they struggle after wealth and fame;
Still was the calm flow of their lives the same,
And yet, I say, they wearied not of it--
So did the promised days by Ogier flit.
Think that a hundred years have now passed by,
Since ye beheld Ogier lie down to die
Beside the fountain; think that now ye are
In France, made dangerous with wasting war;
In Paris, where about each guarded gate,
Gathered in knots, the anxious people wait,
And press around each new-come man to learn
If Harfleur now the pagan wasters burn,
Or if the Rouen folk can keep their chain,
Or Pont de l'Arche unburnt still guards the Seine?
Or if 'tis true that Andelys succour wants?
That Vernon's folk are fleeing east to Mantes?
When will they come? or rather is it true
That a great band the Constable o'erthrew
Upon the marshes of the lower Seine,
And that their long ships, turning back again,
Caught by the high-raised waters of the bore
Were driven here and there and cast ashore?
Such questions did they ask, and, as fresh men
Came hurrying in, they asked them o'er again,
And from scared folk, or fools, or ignorant,
Still got new lies, or tidings very scant.
But now amidst these men at last came one,
A little ere the setting of the sun,
With two stout men behind him, armed right well,
Who ever as they rode on, sooth to tell,
With doubtful eyes upon their master stared,
Or looked about like troubled men and scared.
And he they served was noteworthy indeed;
Of ancient fashion were his arms and weed,
Rich past the wont of men in those sad times;
His face was bronzed, as though by burning climes,
But lovely as the image of a god
Carved in the days before on earth Christ trod;
But solemn were his eyes, and grey as glass,
And like to ruddy gold his fine hair was:
A mighty man he was, and taller far
Than those who on that day must bear the war
The pagans waged: he by the warders stayed
Scarce looked on them, but straight their words obeyed
And showed his pass; then, asked about his name
And from what city of the world he came,
Said, that men called him now the Ancient Knight,
That he was come midst the king's men to fight
From St. Omer's; and as he spoke, he gazed
Down on the thronging street as one amazed,
And answered no more to the questioning
Of frightened folk of this or that sad thing;
But, ere he passed on, turned about at last
And on the wondering guard a strange look cast,
And said, "St. Mary! do such men as ye
Fight with the wasters from across the sea?
Then, certes, are ye lost, however good
Your hearts may be; not such were those who stood
Beside the Hammer-bearer years agone."
So said he, and as his fair armour shone
With beauty of a time long passed away,
So with the music of another day
His deep voice thrilled the awe-struck, listening folk.
Yet from the crowd a mocking voice outbroke,
That cried, "Be merry, masters, fear ye nought,
Surely good succour to our side is brought;
For here is Charlemaine come off his tomb
To save his faithful city from its doom."
"Yea," said another, "this is certain news,
Surely ye know how all the carvers use
To carve the dead man's image at the best,
That guards the place where he may lie at rest;
Wherefore this living image looks indeed,
Spite of his ancient tongue and marvellous weed,
To have but thirty summers."
At the name
Of Charlemaine, he turned to whence there came
The mocking voice, and somewhat knit his brow,
And seemed as he would speak, but scarce knew how;
So with a half-sigh soon sank back again
Into his dream, and shook his well-wrought rein,
And silently went on upon his way.
And this was Ogier: on what evil day
Has he then stumbled, that he needs must come,
Midst war and ravage, to the ancient home
Of his desires? did he grow weary then,
And wish to strive once more with foolish men
For worthless things? or is fair Avallon
Sunk in the sea, and all that glory gone?
Nay, thus it happed--One day she came to him
And said, "Ogier, thy name is waxen dim
Upon the world that thou rememberest not;
The heathen men are thick on many a spot
Thine eyes have seen, and which I love therefore;
And God will give His wonted help no more.
Wilt thou, then, help? canst thou have any mind
To give thy banner once more to the wind?
Since greater glory thou shalt win for this
Than erst thou gatheredst ere thou cam'st to bliss:
For men are dwindled both in heart and frame,
Nor holds the fair land any such a name
As thine, when thou wert living midst thy peers:
The world is worser for these hundred years."
From his calm eyes there gleamed a little fire,
And in his voice was something of desire,
To see the land where he was used to be,
As now he answered: "Nay, choose thou for me,
Thou art the wisest; it is more than well
Within this peaceful place with thee to dwell:
Nor ill perchance in that old land to die,
If, dying, I keep not the memory
Of this fair life of ours." "Nay, nay," said she,
"As to thy dying, that shall never be,
Whiles that thou keep'st my ring--and now, behold,
I take from thee thy charmed crown of gold,
And thou wilt be the Ogier that thou wast
Ere on the loadstone rock thy ship was cast:
Yet thou shalt have thy youthful body still,
And I will guard thy life from every ill."
So was it done, and Ogier, armed right well,
Sleeping, was borne away by some strong spell,
And set upon the Flemish coast; and thence
Turned to St. Omer's, with a doubtful sense
Of being in some wild dream, the while he knew
That great delight forgotten was his due,
That all which there might hap was of small worth.
So on he went, and sometimes unto mirth
Did his attire move the country-folk,
But oftener when strange speeches from him broke
Concerning men and things for long years dead,
He filled the listeners with great awe and dread;
For in such wild times as these people were
Are men soon moved to wonder and to fear.
Now through the streets of Paris did he ride,
And at a certain hostel did abide
Throughout that night, and ere he went next day
He saw a book that on a table lay,
And opening it 'gan read in lazy mood:
But long before it in that place he stood,
Noting nought else; for it did chronicle
The deeds of men of old he knew right well,
When they were living in the flesh with him:
Yea, his own deeds he saw, grown strange and dim
Already, and true stories mixed with lies,
Until, with many thronging memories
Of those old days, his heart was so oppressed,
He 'gan to wish that he might lie at rest,
Forgetting all things: for indeed by this
Little remembrance had he of the bliss
That wrapped his soul in peaceful Avallon.
But his changed life he needs must carry on;
For ye shall know the Queen was gathering men
To send unto the good King, who as then
In Rouen lay, beset by many a band
Of those who carried terror through the land,
And still by messengers for help he prayed:
Therefore a mighty muster was being made,
Of weak and strong, and brave and timorous,
Before the Queen anigh her royal house.
So thither on this morn did Ogier turn,
Some certain news about the war to learn;
And when he came at last into the square,
And saw the ancient palace great and fair
Rise up before him as in other days,
And in the merry morn the bright sun's rays
Glittering on gathering helms and moving spears,
He 'gan to feel as in the long-past years,
And his heart stirred within him. Now the Queen
Came from within, right royally beseen,
And took her seat beneath a canopy,
With lords and captains of the war anigh;
And as she came a mighty shout arose,
And round about began the knights to close,
Their oath of fealty there to swear anew,
And learn what service they had got to do.
But so it was, that some their shouts must stay
To gaze at Ogier as he took his way
Through the thronged place; and quickly too he gat
Unto the place whereas the Lady sat,
For men gave place unto him, fearing him:
For not alone was he most huge of limb,
And dangerous, but something in his face,
As his calm eyes looked o'er the crowded place,
Struck men with awe; and in the ancient days,
When men might hope alive on gods to gaze,
They would have thought, "The gods yet love our town
And from the heavens have sent a great one down."
Withal unto the throne he came so near,
That he the Queen's sweet measured voice could hear;
And swiftly now within him wrought the change
That first he felt amid those faces strange;
And his heart burned to taste the hurrying life
With such desires, such changing sweetness rife.
And yet, indeed, how should he live alone,
Who in the old past days such friends had known?
Then he began to think of Caraheu,
Of Bellicent the fair, and once more knew
The bitter pain of rent and ended love.
But while with hope and vain regret he strove,
He found none 'twixt him and the Queen's high seat,
And, stepping forth, he knelt before her feet
And took her hand to swear, as was the way
Of doing fealty in that ancient day,
And raised his eyes to hers; as fair was she
As any woman of the world might be
Full-limbed and tall, dark haired, from her deep eyes,
The snare of fools, the ruin of the wise,
Love looked unchecked; and now her dainty hand,
The well-knit holder of the golden wand,
Trembled in his, she cast her eyes adown,
And her sweet brow was knitted to a frown,
As he, the taker of such oaths of yore,
Now unto her all due obedience swore,
Yet gave himself no name; and now the Queen,
Awed by his voice as other folk had been,
Yet felt a trembling hope within her rise
Too sweet to think of, and with love's surprise
Her cheek grew pale; she said, "Thy style and name
Thou tellest not, nor what land of thy fame
Is glad; for, certes, some land must be glad,
That in its bounds her house thy mother had."
"Lady," he said, "from what far land I come
I well might tell thee, but another home
Have I long dwelt in, and its name have I
Forgotten now, forgotten utterly
Who were my fellows, and what deeds they did;
Therefore, indeed, shall my first name be hid
And my first country; call me on this day
The Ancient Knight, and let me go my way."
He rose withal, for she her fingers fair
Had drawn aback, and on him 'gan to stare
As one afeard; for something terrible
Was in his speech, and that she knew right well,
Who 'gan to love him, and to fear that she,
Shut out by some strange deadly mystery,
Should never gain from him an equal love;
Yet, as from her high seat he 'gan to move,
She said, "O Ancient Knight, come presently,
When we have done this muster, unto me,
And thou shalt have thy charge and due command
For freeing from our foes this wretched land!"
Then Ogier made his reverence and went,
And somewhat could perceive of her intent;
For in his heart life grew, and love with life
Grew, and therewith, 'twixt love and fame, was strife.
But, as he slowly gat him from the square,
Gazing at all the people gathered there,
A squire of the Queen's behind him came,
And breathless, called him by his new-coined name,
And bade him turn because the Queen now bade,
Since by the muster long she might be stayed,
That to the palace he should bring him straight,
Midst sport and play her coming back to wait;
Then Ogier turned, nought loath, and with him went,
And to a postern-gate his steps he bent,
That Ogier knew right well in days of old;
Worn was it now, and the bright hues and gold
Upon the shields above, with lapse of days,
Were faded much: but now did Ogier gaze
Upon the garden where he walked of yore,
Holding the hands that he should see no more;
For all was changed except the palace fair,
That Charlemaine's own eyes had seen built there
Ere Ogier knew him; there the squire did lead
The Ancient Knight, who still took little heed
Of all the things that by the way he said,
For all his thoughts were on the days long dead.
There in the painted hall he sat again,
And 'neath the pictured eyes of Charlemaine
He ate and drank, and felt it like a dream;
And midst his growing longings yet might deem
That he from sleep should wake up presently
In some fair city on the Syrian sea,
Or on the brown rocks of the loadstone isle.
But fain to be alone, within a while
He gat him to the garden, and there passed
By wondering squires and damsels, till at last,
Far from the merry folk who needs must play,
If on the world were coming its last day,
He sat him down, and through his mind there ran
Faint thoughts of that day, when, outworn and wan,
He lay down by the fountain-side to die.
But when he strove to gain clear memory
Of what had happed since on the isle he lay
Waiting for death, a hopeless castaway,
Thought failing him, would rather bring again
His life among the peers of Charlemaine,
And vex his soul with hapless memories;
Until at last, worn out by thought of these,
And hopeless striving to find what was true,
And pondering on the deeds he had to do
Ere he returned, whereto he could not tell,
Sweet sleep upon his wearied spirit fell.
And on the afternoon of that fair day,
Forgetting all, beneath the trees he lay.
Meanwhile the Queen, affairs of state being done,
Went through the gardens with one dame alone
Seeking for Ogier, whom at last she found
Laid sleeping on the daisy-sprinkled ground,
Dreaming, I know not what, of other days.
Then on him for a while the Queen did gaze,
Drawing sweet poison from the lovely sight,
Then to her fellow turned, "The ancient Knight--
What means he by this word of his?" she said;
"He were well mated with some lovely maid
Just pondering on the late-heard name of love."
"Softly, my lady, he begins to move,"
Her fellow said, a woman old and grey;
"Look now, his arms are of another day;
None know him or his deeds; thy squire just said
He asked about the state of men long dead;
I fear what he may be; look, seest thou not
That ring that on one finger he has got,
Where figures strange upon the gold are wrought:
God grant that he from hell has not been brought
For our confusion, in this doleful war,
Who surely in enough of trouble are
Without such help;" then the Queen turned aside
Awhile, her drawn and troubled face to hide,
For lurking dread this speech within her stirred;
But yet she said, "Thou sayest a foolish word,
This man is come against our enemies
To fight for us." Then down upon her knees
Fell the old woman by the sleeping knight,
And from his hand she drew with fingers light
The wondrous ring, and scarce again could rise
Ere 'neath the trembling Queen's bewildered eyes
The change began; his golden hair turned white,
His smooth cheek wrinkled, and his breathing light
Was turned to troublous struggling for his breath,
And on his shrunk lips lay the hand of death;
And, scarce less pale than he, the trembling Queen
Stood thinking on the beauty she had seen
And longed for but a little while ago,
Yet with her terror still her love did grow,
And she began to weep as though she saw
Her beauty e'en to such an ending draw.
And 'neath her tears waking he oped his eyes,
And strove to speak, but nought but gasping sighs
His lips could utter; then he tried to reach
His hand to them, as though he would beseech
The gift of what was his: but all the while
The crone gazed on them with an evil smile,
Then holding toward the Queen that wondrous ring,
She said, "Why weep'st thou? having this fair thing,
Thou, losing nought the beauty that thou hast,
May'st watch the vainly struggling world go past,
Thyself unchanged." The Queen put forth her hand
And took the ring, and there awhile did stand
And strove to think of it, but still in her
Such all-absorbing longings love did stir,
So young she was, of death she could not think,
Or what a cup eld gives to man to drink;
Yet on her finger had she set the ring
When now the life that hitherto did cling
To Ogier's heart seemed fading quite away,
And scarcely breathing with shut eyes he lay.
Then, kneeling down, she murmured piteously,
"Ah, wilt thou love me if I give it thee,
And thou grow'st young again? what should I do
If with the eyes thou thus shalt gain anew
Thou shouldst look scorn on me?" But with that word
The hedge behind her, by the west wind stirred,
Cast fear into her heart of some one nigh,
And therewith on his finger hastily
She set the ring, then rose and stood apart
A little way, and in her doubtful heart
With love and fear was mixed desire of life.
But standing so, a look with great scorn rife
The elder woman, turning, cast on her,
Pointing to Ogier, who began to stir;
She looked, and all she erst saw now did seem
To have been nothing but a hideous dream,
As fair and young he rose from off the ground
And cast a dazed and puzzled look around,
Like one just waked from sleep in some strange place;
But soon his grave eyes rested on her face,
And turned yet graver seeing her so pale,
And that her eyes were pregnant with some tale
Of love and fear; she 'neath his eyes the while
Forced her pale lips to semblance of a smile,
And said, "O Ancient Knight, thou sleepest then?
While through this poor land range the heathen men,
Nay, let us see the deeds of thine old sword."
"Queen," said he, "bid me then unto this work,
And certes I behind no wall would lurk,
Nor send for succour, while a scanty folk
Still followed after me to break the yoke:
I pray thee grace for sleeping, and were fain
That I might rather never sleep again
Than have such wretched dreams as I e'en now
Have waked from."
Lovelier she seemed to grow
Unto him as he spoke; fresh colour came
Into her face, as though for some sweet shame,
While she with tearful eyes beheld him so,
That somewhat even must his burnt cheek glow,
His heart beat faster. But again she said,
"Nay, will dreams burden such a mighty head?
Then may I too have pardon for a dream:
Last night in sleep I saw thee, who didst seem
To be the King of France; and thou and I
Were sitting at some great festivity
Within the many-peopled gold-hung place."
The blush of shame was gone as on his face
She gazed, and saw him read her meaning clear
And knew that no cold words she had to fear,
But rather that for softer speech he yearned.
Therefore, with love alone her smooth cheek burned;
Her parted lips were hungry for his kiss,
She trembled at the near approaching bliss;
Nathless, she checked her love a little while,
Because she felt the old dame's curious smile
Upon her, and she said, "O Ancient Knight,
If I then read my last night's dream aright,
Thou art come here our very help to be,
Perchance to give my husband back to me;
Come then, if thou this land art fain to save,
And show the wisdom thou must surely have
Unto my council; I will give thee then
What charge I may among my valiant men;
And certes thou wilt do so well herein,
That, ere long, something greater shalt thou win:
Come, then, deliverer of my throne and land,
And let me touch for once thy mighty hand
With these weak fingers."
As she spoke, she met
His eager hand, and all things did forget
But for one moment, for too wise were they
To cast the coming years of joy away;
Then with her other hand her gown she raised
And led him thence, and o'er her shoulder gazed
At her old follower with a doubtful smile,
As though to say, "Be wise, I know thy guile!"
But slowly she behind the lovers walked,
Muttering, "So be it! thou shalt not be balked
Of thy desire; be merry! I am wise,
Nor will I rob thee of thy Paradise
For any other than myself; and thou
May'st even happen to have had enow
Of this new love, before I get the ring,
And I may work for thee no evil thing."
Now ye shall know that the old chronicle,
Wherein I read all this, doth duly tell
Of all the gallant deeds that Ogier did,
There may ye read them; nor let me be chid
If I therefore say little of these things,
Because the thought of Avallon still clings
Unto my heart, and scarcely can I bear
To think of that long, dragging useless year,
Through which, with dulled and glimmering memory,
Ogier was grown content to live and die
Like other men; but this I have to say,
That in the council chamber on that day
The Old Knight showed his wisdom well enow,
While fainter still with love the Queen did grow
Hearing his words, beholding his grey eyes
Flashing with fire of warlike memories;
Yea, at the last he seemed so wise indeed
That she could give him now the charge, to lead
One wing of the great army that set out
From Paris' gates, midst many a wavering shout
Midst trembling prayers, and unchecked wails and tears,
And slender hopes and unresisted fears.
Now ere he went, upon his bed he lay,
Newly awakened at the dawn of day,
Gathering perplexed thoughts of many a thing,
When, midst the carol that the birds did sing
Unto the coming of the hopeful sun,
He heard a sudden lovesome song begun
'Twixt two young voices in the garden green,
That seemed indeed the farewell of the Queen.
_In the white-flowered hawthorn brake,
Love, be merry for my sake;
Twine the blossoms in my hair,
Kiss me where I am most fair--
Kiss me, love! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?_
_Nay, the garlanded gold hair
Hides thee where thou art most fair;_
_Hides the rose-tinged hills of snow--
Ah, sweet love, I have thee now!
Kiss me, love! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?_
_Shall we weep for a dead day,
Or set Sorrow in our way?
Hidden by my golden hair,
Wilt thou weep that sweet days wear?
Kiss me, love! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death?_
_Weep, O Love, the days that flit,
Now, while I can feel thy breath;
Then may I remember it
Sad and old, and near my death.
Kiss me, love! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death_?
Soothed by the pleasure that the music brought
And sweet desire, and vague and dreamy thought
Of happiness it seemed to promise him,
He lay and listened till his eyes grew dim,
And o'er him 'gan forgetfulness to creep
Till in the growing light he lay asleep,
Nor woke until the clanging trumpet-blast
Had summoned him all thought away to cast:
Yet one more joy of love indeed he had
Ere with the battle's noise he was made glad;
For, as on that May morning forth they rode
And passed before the Queen's most fair abode,
There at a window was she waiting them
In fair attire with gold in every hem,
And as the ancient Knight beneath her passed
A wreath of flowering white-thorn down she cast,
And looked farewell to him, and forth he set
Thinking of all the pleasure he should get
From love and war, forgetting Avallon
And all that lovely life so lightly won;
Yea, now indeed the earthly life o'erpast
Ere on the loadstone rock his ship was cast
Was waxing dim, nor yet at all he learned
To 'scape the fire that erst his heart had burned.
And he forgat his deeds, forgat his fame,
Forgat the letters of his ancient name
As one waked fully shall forget a dream,
That once to him a wondrous tale did seem.
Now I, though writing here no chronicle
E'en as I said, must nathless shortly tell
That, ere the army Rouen's gates could gain
By a broad arrow had the King been slain,
And helpless now the wretched country lay
Beneath the yoke, until the glorious day
When Ogier fell at last upon the foe,
And scattered them as helplessly as though
They had been beaten men without a name:
So when to Paris town once more he came
Few folk the memory of the King did keep
Within their hearts, and if the folk did weep
At his returning, 'twas for joy indeed
That such a man had risen at their need
To work for them so great deliverance,
And loud they called on him for King of France.
But if the Queen's heart were the more a-flame
For all that she had heard of his great fame,
I know not; rather with some hidden dread
Of coming fate, she heard her lord was dead,
And her false dream seemed coming true at last,
For the clear sky of love seemed overcast
With clouds of God's great judgments, and the fear
Of hate and final parting drawing near.
So now when he before her throne did stand
Amidst the throng as saviour of the land,
And she her eyes to his kind eyes did raise,
And there before all her own love must praise;
Then did she fall a-weeping, and folk said,
"See, how she sorrows for the newly dead!
Amidst our joy she needs must think of him;
Let be, full surely shall her grief wax dim
And she shall wed again."
So passed the year,
While Ogier set himself the land to clear
Of broken remnants of the heathen men,
And at the last, when May-time came again,
Must he be crowned King of the twice-saved land,
And at the altar take the fair Queen's hand
And wed her for his own. And now by this
Had he forgotten clean the woe and bliss
Of his old life, and still was he made glad
As other men; and hopes and fears he had
As others, and bethought him not at all
Of what strange days upon him yet should fall
When he should live and these again be dead.
Now drew the time round when he should be wed,
And in his palace on his bed he lay
Upon the dawning of the very day:
'Twixt sleep and waking was he, and could hear
E'en at that hour, through the bright morn and clear,
The hammering of the folk who toiled to make
Some well-wrought stages for the pageant's sake,
Though hardly yet the sparrows had begun
To twitter o'er the coming of the sun,
Nor through the palace did a creature move.
There in the sweet entanglement of love
Midst languid thoughts of greater bliss he lay,
Remembering no more of that other day
Than the hot noon remembereth of the night,
Than summer thinketh of the winter white.
In that sweet hour he heard a voice that cried,
"Ogier, Ogier!" then, opening his eyes wide,
And rising on his elbow, gazed around,
And strange to him and empty was the sound
Of his own name; "Whom callest thou?" he said.
"For I, the man who lies upon this bed,
Am Charles of France, and shall be King to-day,
But in a year that now is past away
The Ancient Knight they called me: who is this,
Thou callest Ogier, then, what deeds are his?
And who art thou?" But at that word a sigh,
As of one grieved, came from some place anigh
His bed-side, and a soft voice spake again,
"This Ogier once was great amongst great men;
To Italy a helpless hostage led;
He saved the King when the false Lombard fled,
Bore forth the Oriflamme and gained the day;
Charlot he brought back, whom men led away,
And fought a day-long fight with Caraheu.
The ravager of Rome his right hand slew;
Nor did he fear the might of Charlemaine,
Who for a dreary year beset in vain
His lonely castle; yet at last caught then,
And shut in hold, needs must he come again
To give an unhoped great deliverance
Unto the burdened helpless land of France:
Denmark he gained thereafter, and he wore
The crown of England drawn from trouble sore;
At Tyre then he reigned, and Babylon
With mighty deeds he from the foemen won;
And when scarce aught could give him greater fame,
He left the world still thinking on his name.
"These things did Ogier, and these things didst thou,
Nor will I call thee by a new name now
Since I have spoken words of love to thee--
Ogier, Ogier, dost thou remember me,
E'en if thou hast no thought of that past time
Before thou earnest to our happy clime?"
As this was said, his mazed eyes saw indeed
A lovely woman clad in dainty weed
Beside his bed, and many a thought was stirred
Within his heart by that last plaintive word,
Though nought he said, but waited what should come.
"Love," said she, "I am here to bring thee home;
Well hast thou done all that thou cam'st to do,
And if thou bidest here, for something new
Will folk begin to cry, and all thy fame
Shall then avail thee but for greater blame;
Thy love shall cease to love thee, and the earth
Thou lovest now shall be of little worth
While still thou keepest life, abhorring it.
Behold, in men's lives that so quickly flit
Thus is it, how then shall it be with thee,
Who some faint image of eternity
Hast gained through me?--alas, thou heedest not!
On all these changing things thine heart is hot--
Take then this gift that I have brought from far,
And then may'st thou remember what we are;
The lover and the loved from long ago."
He trembled, and more memory seemed to grow
Within his heart as he beheld her stand,
Holding a glittering crown in her right hand:
"Ogier," she said, "arise and do on thee
The emblems of thy worldly sovereignity,
For we must pass o'er many a sea this morn."
He rose, and in the glittering tunic worn
By Charlemaine he clad himself, and took
The ivory hand, that Charlemaine once shook
Over the people's head in days of old;
Then on his feet he set the shoes of gold,
And o'er his shoulders threw the mantle fair,
And set the gold crown on his golden hair:
Then on the royal chair he sat him down,
As though he deemed the elders of the town
Should come to audience; and in all he seemed
To do these things e'en as a man who dreamed.
And now adown the Seine the golden sun
Shone out, as toward him drew that lovely one
And took from off his head the royal crown,
And, smiling, on the pillow laid it down
And said, "Lie there, O crown of Charlemaine,
Worn by a mighty man, and worn in vain,
Because he died, and all the things he did
Were changed before his face by earth was hid;
A better crown I have for my love's head,
Whereby he yet shall live, when all are dead
His hand has helped." Then on his head she set
The wondrous crown, and said, "Forget, forget!
Forget these weary things, for thou hast much
Of happiness to think of."
At that touch
He rose, a happy light gleamed in his eyes;
And smitten by the rush of memories,
He stammered out, "O love! how came we here?
What do we in this land of Death and Fear?
Have I not been from thee a weary while?
Let us return--I dreamed about the isle;
I dreamed of other years of strife and pain,
Of new years full of struggles long and vain."
She took him by the hand and said, "Come, love,
I am not changed;" and therewith did they move
Unto the door, and through the sleeping place
Swiftly they went, and still was Ogier's face
Turned on her beauty, and no thought was his
Except the dear returning of his bliss.
But at the threshold of the palace-gate
That opened to them, she awhile did wait,
And turned her eyes unto the rippling Seine
And said, "O love, behold it once again!"
He turned, and gazed upon the city grey
Smit by the gold of that sweet morn of May;
He heard faint noises as of wakening folk
As on their heads his day of glory broke;
He heard the changing rush of the swift stream
Against the bridge-piers. All was grown a dream.
His work was over, his reward was come,
Why should he loiter longer from his home?
A little while she watched him silently,
Then beckoned him to follow with a sigh,
And, raising up the raiment from her feet,
Across the threshold stepped into the street;
One moment on the twain the low sun shone,
And then the place was void, and they were gone
How I know not; but this I know indeed,
That in whatso great trouble or sore need
The land of France since that fair day has been,
No more the sword of Ogier has she seen.
Such was the tale he told of Avallon,
E'en such an one as in days past had won
His youthful heart to think upon the quest;
But to those old hearts nigh in reach of rest,
Not much to be desired now it seemed--
Perchance the heart that of such things had dreamed
Had found no words in this death-laden tongue
We speak on earth, wherewith they might be sung;
Perchance the changing years that changed his heart
E'en in the words of that old tale had part,
Changing its sweet to bitter, to despair
The foolish hope that once had glittered there--
Or think, that in some bay of that far home
They then had sat, and watched the green waves come
Up to their feet with many promises;
Or the light wind midst blossom-laden trees,
In the sweet Spring had weighted many a word
Of no worth now, and many a hope had stirred
Long dead for ever.
Howsoe'er that be
Among strange folk they now sat quietly,
As though that tale with them had nought to do,
As though its hopes and fears were something new.
But though, indeed, the outworn, dwindled band
Had no tears left for that once longed-for land,
The very wind must moan for their decay,
And from the sky, grown dull, and low, and grey,
Cold tears must fall upon the lonely field,
That such fair golden hopes erewhile did yield;
And on the blackening woods, wherein the doves
Sat silent now, forgetful of their loves.
Yet, since a little life at least was left,
They were not yet of every joy bereft,
For long ago was past the agony,
Midst which they found that they indeed must die;
And now well-nigh as much their pain was past
As though death's veil already had been cast
Over their heads--so, midst some little mirth,
They watched the dark night hide the gloomy earth.
As many as the leaves fall from the tree,
From the world's life the years are fallen away
Since King Eurystheus sat in majesty
In fair Mycenae; midmost of whose day
It once befell that in a quiet bay
A ship of Tyre was swinging nigh the shore,
Her folk for sailing handling rope and oar.
Fresh was the summer morn, a soft wind stole
Down from the sheep-browsed slopes the cliffs that crowned,
And ruffled lightly the long gleaming roll
Of the peaceful sea, and bore along the sound
Of shepherd-folk and sheep and questing hound,
For in the first dip of the hillside there
Lay bosomed 'mid its trees a homestead fair.
Amid regrets for last night, when the moon,
Risen on the soft dusk, shone on maidens' feet
Brushing the gold-heart lilies to the tune
Of pipes complaining, o'er the grass down-beat
That mixed with dewy flowers its odour sweet,
The shipmen laboured, till the sail unfurled
Swung round the prow to meet another world.
But ere the anchor had come home, a shout
Rang from the strand, as though the ship were hailed.
Whereat the master bade them stay, in doubt
That they without some needful thing had sailed;
When, lo! from where the cliff's steep grey sides failed
Into a ragged stony slip, came twain
Who seemed in haste the ready keel to gain.
Soon they drew nigh, and he who first came down
Unto the surf was a man huge of limb,
Grey-eyed, with crisp-curled hair 'twixt black and brown,
Who had a lion's skin cast over him,
So wrought with gold that the fell showed but dim
Betwixt the threads, and in his hand he bore
A mighty club with bands of steel done o'er.
Panting there followed him a grey old man,
Bearing a long staff, clad in gown of blue,
Feeble of aspect, hollow-cheeked and wan,
Who when unto his fellow's side he drew,
Said faintly: "Now, do that which thou shouldst do;
This is the ship." Then in the other's eye
A smile gleamed, and he spake out merrily:
"Masters, folk tell me that ye make for Tyre,
And after that still nearer to the sun;
And since Fate bids me look to die by fire,
Fain am I, ere my worldly day be done,
To know what from earth's hottest can be won;
And this old man, my kinsman, would with me.
How say ye, will ye bear us o'er the sea?"
"What is thy name?" the master said: "And know
That we are merchants, and for nought give nought;
What wilt thou pay?--thou seem'st full rich, I trow."
The old man muttered, stooped adown and caught
At something in the sand: "E'en so I thought,"
The younger said, "when I set out from home--
As to my name, perchance in days to come
"Thou shalt know that--but have heed, take this toy,
And call me the Strong Man." And as he spake
The master's deep-brown eyes 'gan gleam with joy,
For from his arm a huge ring did he take,
And cast it on the deck, where it did break
A water-jar, and in the wet shards lay
Golden, and gleaming like the end of day.
But the old man held out a withered hand,
Wherein there shone two pearls most great and fair,
And said, "If any nigher I might stand,
Then might'st thou see the things I give thee here--
And for a name--a many names I bear,
But call me Shepherd of the Shore this tide,
And for more knowledge with a good will bide."
From one to the other turned the master's eyes;
The Strong Man laughed as at some hidden jest,
And wild doubts in the shipman's heart did rise;
But thinking on the thing, he deemed it best
To bid them come aboard, and take such rest
As they might have of the untrusty sea,
'Mid men who trusty fellows still should be.
Then no more words the Strong Man made, but straight
Caught up the elder in his arms, and so,
Making no whit of all that added weight,
Strode to the ship, right through the breakers low,
And catching at the rope that they did throw
Out toward his hand, swung up into the ship;
Then did the master let the hawser slip.
The shapely prow cleft the wet mead and green,
And wondering drew the shipmen round to gaze
Upon those limbs, the mightiest ever seen;
And many deemed it no light thing to face
The splendour of his eyen, though they did blaze
With no wrath now, no hate for them to dread,
As seaward 'twixt the summer isles they sped.
Freshened the wind, but ever fair it blew
Unto the south-east; but as failed the land,
Unto the plunging prow the Strong Man drew,
And silent, gazing with wide eyes did stand,
As though his heart found rest; but 'mid the band
Of shipmen in the stern the old man sat,
Telling them tales that no man there forgat.
As one who had beheld, he told them there
Of the sweet singer, whom, for his song's sake,
The dolphins back from choking death did bear;
How in the mid sea did the vine outbreak
O'er that ill bark when Bacchus 'gan to wake;
How anigh Cyprus, ruddy with the rose
The cold sea grew as any June-loved close;
While on the flowery shore all things alive
Grew faint with sense of birth of some delight,
And the nymphs waited trembling there, to give
Glad welcome to the glory of that sight:
He paused then, ere he told how, wild and white,
Rose ocean, breaking o'er a race accurst,
A world once good, now come unto its worst.
And then he smiled, and said, "And yet ye won,
Ye men, and tremble not on days like these,
Nor think with what a mind Prometheus' son
Beheld the last of the torn reeling trees
From high Parnassus: slipping through the seas
Ye never think, ye men-folk, how ye seem
From down below through the green waters' gleam."
Dusk was it now when these last words he said,
And little of his visage might they see,
But o'er their hearts stole vague and troublous dread,
They knew not why; yet ever quietly
They sailed that night; nor might a morning be
Fairer than was the next morn; and they went
Along their due course after their intent.
The fourth day, about sunrise, from the mast
The watch cried out he saw Phoenician land;
Whereat the Strong Man on the elder cast
A look askance, and he straight took his stand
Anigh the prow, and gazed beneath his hand
Upon the low sun and the scarce-seen shore,
Till cloud-flecks rose, and gathered and drew o'er.
The morn grown cold; then small rain 'gan to fall,
And all the wind dropped dead, and hearts of men
Sank, and their bark seemed helpless now and small;
Then suddenly the wind 'gan moan again;
Sails flapped, and ropes beat wild about; and then
Down came the great east wind; and the ship ran
Straining, heeled o'er, through seas all changed and wan.
Westward, scarce knowing night from day, they drave
Through sea and sky grown one; the Strong Man wrought
With mighty hands, and seemed a god to save;
But on the prow, heeding all weather nought,
The elder stood, nor any prop he sought,
But swayed to the ship's wallowing, as on wings
He there were set above the wrack of things.
And westward still they drave; and if they saw
Land upon either side, as on they sped,
'Twas but as faces in a dream may draw
Anigh, and fade, and leave nought in their stead;
And in the shipmen's hearts grew heavy dread
To sick despair; they deemed they should drive on
Till the world's edge and empty space were won.
But 'neath the Strong Man's eyes e'en as they might
They toiled on still; and he sang to the wind,
And spread his arms to meet the waters white,
As o'er the deck they tumbled, making blind
The brine-drenched shipmen; nor with eye unkind
He gazed up at the lightning; nor would frown
When o'er the wet waste Jove's bolt rattled down.
And they, who at the last had come to think
Their guests were very gods, with all their fear
Feared nought belike that their good ship would sink
Amid the storm; but rather looked to hear
The last moan of the wind that them should bear
Into the windless stream of ocean grey,
Where they should float till dead was every day.
Yet their fear mocked them; for the storm 'gan die
About the tenth day, though unto the west
They drave on still; soon fair and quietly
The morn would break: and though amid their rest
Nought but long evil wandering seemed the best
That they might hope for; still, despite their dread,
Sweet was the quiet sea and goodlihead
Of the bright sun at last come back again;
And as the days passed, less and less fear grew,
If without cause, till faded all their pain;
And they 'gan turn unto their guests anew,
Yet durst ask nought of what that evil drew
Upon their heads; or of returning speak.
Happy they felt, but listless, spent, and weak.
And now as at the first the elder was,
And sat and told them tales of yore agone;
But ever the Strong Man up and down would pass
About the deck, or on the prow alone
Would stand and stare out westward; and still on
Through a fair summer sea they went, nor thought
Of what would come when these days turned to nought.
And now when twenty days were well passed o'er
They made a new land; cloudy mountains high
Rose from the sea at first; then a green shore
Spread fair below them: as they drew anigh
No sloping, stony strand could they espy,
And no surf breaking; the green sea and wide
Wherethrough they slipped was driven by no tide.
Dark fell ere they might set their eager feet
Upon the shore; but night-long their ship lay
As in a deep stream, by the blossoms sweet
That flecked the grass whence flowers ne'er passed away.
But when the cloud-barred east brought back the day,
And turned the western mountain-tops to gold,
Fresh fear the shipmen in their bark did hold.
For as a dream seemed all; too fair for those
Who needs must die; moreover they could see,
A furlong off, 'twixt apple-tree and rose,
A brazen wall that gleamed out wondrously
In the young sun, and seemed right long to be;
And memory of all marvels lay upon
Their shrinking hearts now this sweet place was won.
But when unto the nameless guests they turned,
Who stood together nigh the plank shot out
Shoreward, within the Strong Man's eyes there burned
A wild light, as the other one in doubt
He eyed a moment; then with a great shout
Leaped into the blossomed grass; the echoes rolled
Back from the hills, harsh still and over-bold.
Slowly the old man followed him, and still
The crew held back: they knew now they were brought
Over the sea the purpose to fulfil
Of these strange men; and in their hearts they thought,
"Perchance we yet shall live, if, meddling nought
With dreams, we bide here till these twain come back;
But prying eyes the fire-blast seldom lack."
Yet 'mongst them were two fellows bold and young,
Who, looking each upon the other's face,
Their hearts to meet the unknown danger strung,
And went ashore, and at a gentle pace
Followed the strangers, who unto the place
Where the wall gleamed had turned; peace and desire
Mingled together in their hearts, as nigher
They drew unto that wall, and dulled their fear:
Fair wrought it was, as though with bricks of brass;
And images upon its face there were,
Stories of things a long while come to pass:
Nor that alone--as looking in a glass
Its maker knew the tales of what should be,
And wrought them there for bird and beast to see.
So on they went; the many birds sang sweet
Through all that blossomed thicket from above,
And unknown flowers bent down before their feet;
The very air, cleft by the grey-winged dove,
Throbbed with sweet scent, and smote their souls with love.
Slowly they went till those twain stayed before
A strangely-wrought and iron-covered door.
They stayed, too, till o'er noise of wind, and bird,
And falling flower, there rang a mighty shout
As the Strong Man his steel-bound club upreared,
And drave it 'gainst the hammered iron stout,
Where 'neath his blows flew bolt and rivet out,
Till shattered on the ground the great door lay,
And into the guarded place bright poured the day.
The Strong Man entered, but his fellow stayed,
Leaning against a tree-trunk as they deemed.
They faltered now, and yet all things being weighed
Went on again; and thought they must have dreamed
Of the old man, for now the sunlight streamed
Full on the tree he had been leaning on,
And him they saw not go, yet was he gone:
Only a slim green lizard flitted there
Amidst the dry leaves; him they noted nought,
But trembling, through the doorway 'gan to peer,
And still of strange and dreadful saw not aught,
Only a garden fair beyond all thought.
And there, 'twixt sun and shade, the Strong Man went
On some long-sought-for end belike intent.
They 'gan to follow down a narrow way
Of green-sward that the lilies trembled o'er,
And whereon thick the scattered rose-leaves lay;
But a great wonder weighed upon them sore,
And well they thought they should return no more,
Yet scarce a pain that seemed; they looked to meet
Before they died things strange and fair and sweet.
So still to right and left the Strong Man thrust
The blossomed boughs, and passed on steadily,
As though his hardy heart he well did trust,
Till in a while he gave a joyous cry,
And hastened on, as though the end drew nigh;
And women's voices then they deemed they heard,
Mixed with a noise that made desire afeard.
Yet through sweet scents and sounds on did they bear
Their panting hearts, till the path ended now
In a wide space of green, a streamlet clear
From out a marble basin there did flow,
And close by that a slim-trunked tree did grow,
And on a bough low o'er the water cold
There hung three apples of red-gleaming gold.
About the tree, new risen e'en now to meet
The shining presence of that mighty one,
Three damsels stood, naked from head to feet
Save for the glory of their hair, where sun
And shadow flickered, while the wind did run
Through the grey leaves o'erhead, and shook the grass
Where nigh their feet the wandering bee did pass.
But 'midst their delicate limbs and all around
The tree-roots, gleaming blue black could they see
The spires of a great serpent, that, enwound
About the smooth bole, looked forth threateningly,
With glittering eyes and raised crest, o'er the three
Fair heads fresh crowned, and hissed above the speech
Wherewith they murmured softly each to each.
Now the Strong Man amid the green space stayed,
And leaning on his club, with eager eyes
But brow yet smooth, in voice yet friendly said:
"O daughters of old Hesperus the Wise,
Well have ye held your guard here; but time tries
The very will of gods, and to my hand
Must give this day the gold fruit of your land."
Then spake the first maid--sweet as the west wind
Amidst of summer noon her sweet voice was:
"Ah, me! what knows this place of changing mind
Of men or gods; here shall long ages pass,
And clean forget thy feet upon the grass,
Thy hapless bones amid the fruitful mould;
Look at thy death envenomed swift and cold!"
Hiding new flowers, the dull coils, as she spake,
Moved near her limbs: but then the second one,
In such a voice as when the morn doth wake
To song of birds, said, "When the world foredone
Has moaned its last, still shall we dwell alone
Beneath this bough, and have no tales to tell
Of things deemed great that on the earth befell."
Then spake the third, in voice as of the flute
That wakes the maiden to her wedding morn:
"If any god should gain our golden fruit,
Its curse would make his deathless life forlorn.
Lament thou, then, that ever thou wert born;
Yet all things, changed by joy or loss or pain,
To what they were shall change and change again."
"So be it," he said, "the Fates that drive me on
Shall slay me or shall save; blessing or curse
That followeth after when the thing is won
Shall make my work no better now nor worse;
And if it be that the world's heart must nurse
Hatred against me, how then shall I choose
To leave or take?--let your dread servant loose!"
E'en therewith, like a pillar of black smoke,
Swift, shifting ever, drave the worm at him;
In deadly silence now that nothing broke,
Its folds were writhing round him trunk and limb,
Until his glittering gear was nought but dim
E'en in that sunshine, while his head and side
And breast the fork-tongued, pointed muzzle tried.
Closer the coils drew, quicker all about
The forked tongue darted, and yet stiff he stood,
E'en as an oak that sees the straw flare out
And lick its ancient bole for little good:
Until the godlike fury of his mood
Burst from his heart in one great shattering cry,
And rattling down the loosened coils did lie;
And from the torn throat and crushed dreadful head
Forth flowed a stream of blood along the grass;
Bright in the sun he stood above the dead,
Panting with fury; yet as ever was
The wont of him, soon did his anger pass,
And with a happy smile at last he turned
To where the apples o'er the water burned.
Silent and moveless ever stood the three;
No change came o'er their faces, as his hand
Was stretched aloft unto the sacred tree;
Nor shrank they aught aback, though he did stand
So close that tresses of their bright hair, fanned
By the sweet garden breeze, lay light on him,
And his gold fell brushed by them breast and limb.
He drew adown the wind-stirred bough, and took
The apples thence; then let it spring away,
And from his brow the dark hair backward shook,
And said: "O sweet, O fair, and shall this day
A curse upon my life henceforward lay--
This day alone? Methinks of coming life
Somewhat I know, with all its loss and strife.
"But this I know, at least: the world shall wend
Upon its way, and, gathering joy and grief
And deeds done, bear them with it to the end;
So shall it, though I lie as last year's leaf
Lies 'neath a summer tree, at least receive
My life gone by, and store it, with the gain
That men alive call striving, wrong, and pain.
"So for my part I rather bless than curse,
And bless this fateful land; good be with it;
Nor for this deadly thing's death is it worse,
Nor for the lack of gold; still shall ye sit
Watching the swallow o'er the daisies flit;
Still shall your wandering limbs ere day is done
Make dawn desired by the sinking sun.
"And now, behold! in memory of all this
Take ye this girdle that shall waste and fade
As fadeth not your fairness and your bliss,
That when hereafter 'mid the blossoms laid
Ye talk of days and men now nothing made,
Ye may remember how the Theban man,
The son of Jove, came o'er the waters wan."
Their faces changed not aught for all they heard;
As though all things now fully told out were,
They gazed upon him without any word:
Ah! craving kindness, hope, or loving care,
Their fairness scarcely could have made more fair,
As with the apples folded in his fell
He went, to do more deeds for folk to tell.
Now as the girdle on the ground was cast
Those fellows turned and hurried toward the door,
And as across its broken leaves they passed
The old man saw they not, e'en as before;
But an unearthed blind mole bewildered sore
Was wandering there in fruitless, aimless wise,
That got small heed from their full-sated eyes.
Swift gat they to their anxious folk; nor had
More time than just to say, "Be of good cheer,
For in our own land may we yet be glad,"
When they beheld the guests a-drawing near;
And much bewildered the two fellows were
To see the old man, and must even deem
That they should see things stranger than a dream.
But when they were aboard the elder cried,
"Up sails, my masters, fair now is the wind;
Nor good it is too long here to abide,
Lest what ye may not loose your souls should bind."
And as he spake, the tall trees left behind
Stirred with the rising land-wind, and the crew,
Joyous thereat, the hawsers shipward drew.
Swift sped the ship, and glad at heart were all,
And the Strong Man was merry with the rest,
And from the elder's lips no word did fall
That did not seem to promise all the best;
Yet with a certain awe were men oppressed,
And felt as if their inmost hearts were bare,
And each man's secret babbled through the air.
Still oft the old man sat with them and told
Tales of past time, as on the outward way;
And now would they the face of him behold
And deem it changed; the years that on him lay
Seemed to grow nought, and no more wan and grey
He looked, but ever glorious, wise and strong,
As though no lapse of time for him were long.
At last, when six days through the kindly sea
Their keel had slipped, he said: "Come hearken now,
For so it is that things fare wondrously
E'en in these days; and I a tale can show
That, told by you unto your sons shall grow
A marvel of the days that are to come:
Take heed and tell it when ye reach your home.
"Yet living in the world a man there is
Men call the Theban King Amphitryon's son,
Although perchance a greater sire was his;
But certainly his lips have hung upon
Alcmena's breasts: great deeds this man hath won
Already, for his name is Hercules,
And e'en ye Asian folk have heard of these.
"Now ere the moon, this eve in his last wane,
Was born, this Hercules, the fated thrall
Of King Eurystheus, was straight bid to gain
Gifts from a land whereon no foot doth fall
Of mortal man, beyond the misty wall
Of unknown waters; pensively he went
Along the sea on his hard life intent.
"And at the dawn he came into a bay
Where the sea, ebbed far down, left wastes of sand,
Walled from the green earth by great cliffs and grey;
Then he looked up, and wondering there did stand,
For strange things lay in slumber on the strand;
Strange counterparts of what the firm earth hath
Lay scattered all about his weary path:
"Sea-lions and sea-horses and sea-kine,
Sea-boars, sea-men strange-skinned, of wondrous hair;
And in their midst a man who seemed divine
For changeless eld, and round him women fair,
Clad in the sea-webs glassy green and clear
With gems on head and girdle, limb and breast,
Such as earth knoweth not among her best.
"A moment at the fair and wondrous sight
He stared, then, since the heart in him was good,
He went about with careful steps and light
Till o'er the sleeping sea-god now he stood;
And if the white-foot maids had stirred his blood
As he passed by, now other thoughts had place
Within his heart when he beheld that face.
"For Nereus now he knew, who knows all things;
And to himself he said, 'If I prevail,
Better than by some god-wrought eagle-wings
Shall I be holpen;' then he cried out: 'Hail,
O Nereus! lord of shifting hill and dale!
Arise and wrestle; I am Hercules!
Not soon now shalt thou meet the ridgy seas.'
"And mightily he cast himself on him;
And Nereus cried out shrilly; and straightway
That sleeping crowd, fair maid with half-hid limb,
Strange man and green-haired beast, made no delay,
But glided down into the billows grey,
And, by the lovely sea embraced, were gone,
While they two wrestled on the sea strand lone.
"Soon found the sea-god that his bodily might
Was nought in dealing with Jove's dear one there;
And soon he 'gan to use his magic sleight:
Into a lithe leopard, and a hugging bear
He turned him; then the smallest fowl of air
The straining arms of Hercules must hold,
And then a mud-born wriggling eel and cold.
"Then as the firm hands mastered this, forth brake
A sudden rush of waters all around,
Blinding and choking: then a thin green snake
With golden eyes; then o'er the shell-strewn ground
Forth stole a fly the least that may be found;
Then earth and heaven seemed wrapped in one huge flame,
But from the midst thereof a voice there came:
"'Kinsman and stout-heart, thou hast won the day,
Nor to my grief: what wouldst thou have of me?'
And therewith to an old man small and grey
Faded the roaring flame, who wearily
Sat down upon the sand and said, 'Let be!
I know thy tale; worthy of help thou art;
Come now, a short way hence will there depart
"'A ship of Tyre for the warm southern seas,
Come we a-board; according to my will
Her way shall be.' Then up rose Hercules,
Merry of face, though hot and panting still;
But the fair summer day his heart did fill
With all delight; and so forth went the twain,
And found those men desirous of all gain.
"Ah, for these gainful men--somewhat indeed
Their sails are rent, their bark beat; kin and friend
Are wearying for them; yet a friend in need
They yet shall gain, if at their journey's end,
Upon the last ness where the wild goats wend
To lick the salt-washed stones, a house they raise
Bedight with gold in kindly Nereus' praise."
Breathless they waited for these latest words,
That like the soft wind of the gathering night
Were grown to be: about the mast flew birds
Making their moan, hovering long-winged and white;
And now before their straining anxious sight
The old man faded out into the air,
And from his place flew forth a sea-mew fair.
Then to the Mighty Man, Alcmena's son,
With yearning hearts they turned till he should speak,
And he spake softly: "Nought ill have ye done
In helping me to find what I did seek:
The world made better by me knows if weak
My hand and heart are: but now, light the fire
Upon the prow and worship the grey sire."
So did they; and such gifts as there they had
Gave unto Nereus; yea, and sooth to say,
Amid the tumult of their hearts made glad,
Had honoured Hercules in e'en such way;
But he laughed out amid them, and said, "Nay,
Not yet the end is come; nor have I yet
Bowed down before vain longing and regret.
"It may be--who shall tell, when I go back
There whence I came, and looking down behold
The place that my once eager heart shall lack,
And all my dead desires a-lying cold,
But I may have the might then to enfold
The hopes of brave men in my heart?--but long
Life lies before first with its change and wrong."
So fair along the watery ways they sped
In happy wise, nor failed of their return;
Nor failed in ancient Tyre the ways to tread,
Teaching their tale to whomsoever would learn,
Nor failed at last the flesh of beasts to burn
In Nereus' house, turned toward the bright day's end
On the last ness, round which the wild goats wend.
Here are we for the last time face to face,
Thou and I, Book, before I bid thee speed
Upon thy perilous journey to that place
For which I have done on thee pilgrim's weed,
Striving to get thee all things for thy need--
--I love thee, whatso time or men may say
Of the poor singer of an empty day.
Good reason why I love thee, e'en if thou
Be mocked or clean forgot as time wears on;
For ever as thy fashioning did grow,
Kind word and praise because of thee I won
From those without whom were my world all gone,
My hope fallen dead, my singing cast away,
And I set soothly in an empty day.
I love thee; yet this last time must it be,
That thou must hold thy peace and I must speak,
Lest if thou babble I begin to see
Thy gear too thin, thy limbs and heart too weak,
To find the land thou goest forth to seek--
--Though what harm if thou die upon the way,
Thou idle singer of an empty day?
But though this land desired thou never reach,
Yet folk who know it mayst thou meet or death;
Therefore a word unto thee would I teach
To answer these, who, noting thy weak breath,
Thy wandering eyes, thy heart of little faith,
May make thy fond desire a sport and play,
Mocking the singer of an empty day.
That land's name, say'st thou? and the road thereto?
Nay, Book, thou mockest, saying thou know'st it not;
Surely no book of verse I ever knew
But ever was the heart within him hot
To gain the Land of Matters Unforgot--
--There, now we both laugh--as the whole world may,
At us poor singers of an empty day.
Nay, let it pass, and hearken! Hast thou heard
That therein I believe I have a friend,
Of whom for love I may not be afeard?
It is to him indeed I bid thee wend;
Yea, he perchance may meet thee ere thou end,
Dying so far off from the hedge of bay,
Thou idle singer of an empty day!
Well, think of him, I bid thee, on the road,
And if it hap that midst of thy defeat,
Fainting beneath thy follies' heavy load,
My Master, Geoffrey Chaucer, thou do meet,
Then shalt thou win a space of rest full sweet;
Then be thou bold, and speak the words I say,
The idle singer of an empty day!
"O Master, O thou great of heart and tongue,
Thou well mayst ask me why I wander here,
In raiment rent of stories oft besung!
But of thy gentleness draw thou anear,
And then the heart of one who held thee dear
Mayst thou behold! So near as that I lay
Unto the singer of an empty day.
"For this he ever said, who sent me forth
To seek a place amid thy company;
That howsoever little was my worth,
Yet was he worth e'en just so much as I;
He said that rhyme hath little skill to lie:
Nor feigned to cast his worser part away
In idle singing for an empty day.
"I have beheld him tremble oft enough
At things he could not choose but trust to me,
Although he knew the world was wise and rough:
And never did he fail to let me see
His love,--his folly and faithlessness, may be;
And still in turn I gave him voice to pray
Such prayers as cling about an empty day.
"Thou, keen-eyed, reading me, mayst read him through,
For surely little is there left behind;
No power great deeds unnameable to do;
No knowledge for which words he may not find,
No love of things as vague as autumn wind--
--Earth of the earth lies hidden by my clay,
The idle singer of an empty day!
"Children we twain are, saith he, late made wise
In love, but in all else most childish still,
And seeking still the pleasure of our eyes,
And what our ears with sweetest sounds may fill;
Not fearing Love, lest these things he should kill;
Howe'er his pain by pleasure doth he lay,
Making a strange tale of an empty day.
"Death have we hated, knowing not what it meant;
Life have we loved, through green leaf and through sere,
Though still the less we knew of its intent:
The Earth and Heaven through countless year on year,
Slow changing, were to us but curtains fair,
Hung round about a little room, where play
Weeping and laughter of man's empty day.
"O Master, if thine heart could love us yet,
Spite of things left undone, and wrongly done,
Some place in loving hearts then should we get,
For thou, sweet-souled, didst never stand alone,
But knew'st the joy and woe of many an one--
--By lovers dead, who live through thee we pray,
Help thou us singers of an empty day!"
Fearest thou, Book, what answer thou mayst gain
Lest he should scorn thee, and thereof thou die?
Nay, it shall not be.--Thou mayst toil in vain,
And never draw the House of Fame anigh;
Yet he and his shall know whereof we cry,
Shall call it not ill done to strive to lay
The ghosts that crowd about life's empty day.
Then let the others go! and if indeed
In some old garden thou and I have wrought,
And made fresh flowers spring up from hoarded seed,
And fragrance of old days and deeds have brought
Back to folk weary; all was not for nought.
--No little part it was for me to play--
The idle singer of an empty day.
Love is enough; though the World be a-waning
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds, passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.
Love is enough: it grew up without heeding
In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure,
And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure
Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding,
As the morning and evening passed over its treasure.
And what do ye say then?--that Spring long departed
Has brought forth no child to the softness and showers;
--That we slept and we dreamed through the Summer of flowers;
We dreamed of the Winter, and waking dead-hearted
Found Winter upon us and waste of dull hours.
Nay, Spring was o'er happy and knew not the reason,
And Summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended
In her fulness of wealth that might not be amended;
But this is the harvest and the garnering season,
And the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended.
It sprang without sowing, it grew without heeding,
Ye knew not its name and ye knew not its measure,
Ye noted it not mid your hope and your pleasure;
There was pain in its blossom, despair in its seeding,
But daylong your bosom now nurseth its treasure.
Love is enough: draw near and behold me
Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter,
And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after
For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me
And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter.
--Pass by me, and hearken, and think of me not!
Cry out and come near; for my ears may not hearken,
And my eyes are grown dim as the eyes of the dying.
Is this the grey rack o'er the sun's face a-flying?
Or is it your faces his brightness that darken?
Comes a wind from the sea, or is it your sighing?
--Pass by me and hearken, and pity me not!
Ye know not how void is your hope and your living:
Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!
Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me,
There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving
Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me.
--Pass by me and hearken, and waken me not!
Wherewith will ye buy it, ye rich who behold me?
Draw out from your coffers your rest and your laughter,
And the fair gilded hope of the dawn coming after!
Nay this I sell not,--though ye bought me and sold me,--
For your house stored with such things from threshold to rafter.
--Pass by me, I hearken, and think of you not!
Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out, the World heedeth not, "Love, lead us home!"
He leadeth, He hearkeneth, He cometh to you-ward;
Set your faces as steel to the fears that assemble
Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the froward:
Lo! his lips, how with tales of last kisses they tremble!
Lo! his eyes of all sorrow that may not dissemble!
Cry out, for he heedeth, "O Love, lead us home!"
O hearken the words of his voice of compassion:
"Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken
Of the weary unrest and the world's passing fashion!
As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken,
But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken,
As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home.
"Come--pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending!
Come--fear ye shall have, mid the sky's overcasting!
Come--change ye shall have, for far are ye wending!
Come--no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting,
But the kissed lips of Love and fair life everlasting!
Cry out, for one heedeth, who leadeth you home!"
Is he gone? was he with us?--ho ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; for have we not found it?
Here is the Cup with the roses around it;
The World's Wound well healed, and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out! for he heedeth, fair Love that led home.
_Of the birth of Sigurd the son of Sigmund._
Peace lay on the land of the Helper and the house of Elf his son;
And none came o'er its mountains of men-folk's company.
But fair-fruited, many-peopled, it lies a goodly strip,
No sword had he held in his hand since his father fell to field,
And against the life of the slayer he bore undinted shield:
Yet no fear in his heart abided, nor desired he aught at all,
Again, in the house of the Helper there dwelt a certain man
Beardless and low of stature, of visage pinched and wan:
So exceeding old was Regin, that no son of man could tell
And was deft in every cunning, save the dealings of the sword:
The Master of the Masters in the smithying craft was he;
In this land abideth Hiordis amid all people's praise
Till cometh the time appointed: in the fulness of the days
And still as on other mornings they saw folk go and come,
Then she held him a little season on her weary and happy breast
She spake to the new-born baby as one who might understand,
Then, lo, in the hall white raiment, as thither the damsels came,
"Come ships from the sea," said an elder, "with all gifts of the
Eastland gold?"
They said: "The earth is weary; but the tender blade hath sprung,
Said King Elf: "How say ye, women? Of a King new-born do ye tell
By a God of the Heavens begotten in our fathers' house to dwell?"
Then she with the golden burden to the kingly high-seat stepped
And away from the new-born baby the purple cloths she swept,
And cried: "O King of the people, long mayst thou live in bliss,
As our hearts to-day are happy! Queen Hiordis sends thee this,
Now the gift to thee is given, and to thee is brought the fame."
Then e'en as a man astonied King Elf the Volsung took,
To his ears there came a murmur of far seas beneath the wind
Low talk of the gathered wise-ones in the Goth-folk's holy field:
With the love of many peoples was the wise king smitten through,
"O Sigmund King of Battle; O man of many days,
And now, O mighty Sigmund, wherewith shall we name thy son?"
How many things shalt thou waken, how many lull to sleep!
How many things shalt thou scatter, how many gather and keep!
But men feast in the merry noontide, and glad is the April green
Earls think of marvellous stories, and along the golden strings
Flit words of banded brethren and names of war-fain Kings:
All the days of the deeds of Sigmund who was born so long ago;
All deeds of the glorious Signy, and her tarrying-tide of woe;
Men tell of the years of Volsung, and how long agone it was
That he changed his life in battle, and brought the tale to pass:
For the dimness of King Rerir and the tale of his warfare told:
And of Sigi the very ancient, and the unnamed Sons of God,
_Sigurd getteth to him the horse that is called Greyfell._
Now waxeth the son of Sigmund in might and goodliness,
And soft the days win over, and all men his beauty bless.
But amidst the summer season was the Isle-queen Hiordis wed
To King Elf the son of the Helper, and fair their life-days sped.
Now hath the child grown greater, and is keen and eager of wit
And full of understanding, and oft hath the joy to sit
Amid talk of weighty matters when the wise men meet for speech;
And joyous he is moreover and blithe and kind with each.
But Regin the wise craftsmaster heedeth the youngling well,
And before the Kings he cometh, and saith such words to tell.
"I have fostered thy youth, King Elf, and thine O Helper of men,
And ye wot that such a master no king shall see again;
Then spake the Helper of men-folk: "Yea, do herein thy will:
Then Regin laughed, and answered: "I doled out cunning to thee;
Gone forth is the word of the Norns, that abideth ever the same.
And now, despite my cunning, how deem ye I shall die?"
So is Sigurd now with Regin, and he learns him many things;
The tongues of many countries, and soft speech for men's delight;
So wise of heart waxed Sigurd, and of body wondrous strong:
And he chased the deer of the forest, and many a wood-wolf slew,
And many a bull of the mountains: and the desert dales he knew,
On a day he sat with Regin amidst the unfashioned gold,
And the silver grey from the furnace; and Regin spake and told
Then Regin looked upon him: "Thou too shalt one day ride
But Sigurd knit his brows, and in wrathful wise he said:
"Ill words of those thou speakest that my youth have cherished,
Then Regin laughed and answered: "Nay, well I see by thy mood
Yea hearken to this my counsel, and crave for a battle-steed."
Then Regin answered and said: "Thy kin of the Kings of yore
And teach me the deeds of a king."
Then answered King Elf and spake:
"The stalls of the Kings are before thee to set aside or to take,
Yet answered Sigurd again;
Ye shall give me a token for Gripir, and bid him to let me choose
But if overmuch I have asked you, forget this prayer of mine,
And deem the word unspoken, and get ye to the wine."
Then smiled King Elf, and answered: "A long way wilt thou ride,
To where unpeace and troubles and the griefs of the soul abide,
Yea unto the death at the last: yet surely shalt thou win
The praise of many a people: so have thy way herein.
Forsooth no more may we hold thee than the hazel copse may hold
The sun of the early dawning, that turneth it all unto gold."
Then sweetly Sigurd thanked them; and through the night he lay
Mid dreams of many a matter till the dawn was on the way;
And about were meads wide-spreading; and many a beast thereon,
Yea some that are men-folk's terror, their sport and pasture won.
And I bid thee again come hither when the sword of worth is won,
Then again gat Sigurd outward, and adown the steep he ran
And unto the horse-fed meadow: but lo, a grey-clad man,
One-eyed and seeming-ancient, there met him by the way:
And he spake: "Thou hastest, Sigurd; yet tarry till I say
Nay sure, for thy face is shining like battle-eager men
My master Regin tells of: and I love thy cloud-grey gown
Who hath known thy father aforetime, and other kings of thy kin."
So Sigurd said, "I am ready; and what is the deed to win?"
He said: "We shall drive the horses adown to the water-side,
Then the twain sped on together, and they drave the horses on
Till they came to a rushing river a water wide and wan;
And the white mews hovered o'er it; but none might hear their cry
Toss over the flowery meadows, a bright thing far away:
Wide then he wheeled about them, then took the stream again
And with the waves' white horses mingled his cloudy mane.
Then spake the elder of days: "Hearken now, Sigurd, and hear;
Time was when I gave thy father a gift thou shalt yet deem dear,
Then forth he strode to the mountains, and fain was Sigurd now
To ask him many a matter: but dim did his bright shape grow,
As a man from the litten doorway fades into the dusk of night;
So Sigurd turned to the river and stood by the wave-wet strand,
And the grey horse swims to his feet and lightly leaps aland,
And the youngling looks upon him, and deems none beside him good.
The tireless horse of Odin: cloud-grey he was of hue,
And it seemed as Sigurd backed him that Sigmund's son he knew,
So glad he went beneath him. Then the youngling's song arose
_Regin telleth Sigurd of his kindred, and of the Gold that was
accursed from ancient days._
Now yet the days pass over, and more than words may tell
Grows Sigurd strong and lovely, and all children love him well.
But oft he looks on the mountains and many a time is fain
Yet needs must I wait for a little till Odin calls for me."
Now again it happed on a day that he sat in Regin's hall
And hearkened many tidings of what had chanced to fall,
"Thou art King Sigmund's child:
Or abide in vain for the day that never shall come about,
Then Sigurd answered and said: "Nought such do I look to be.
But thou, a deedless man, too much thou eggest me:
When the harps of God-home tinkle, and the Gods are at stretch to
And meseemeth I hear them talking of the day when I shall come,
But the wary foot is the surest, and the hasty oft turns back."
Then answered Regin the guileful: "The deed is ready to hand,
Yet holding my peace is the best, for well thou lovest the land;
So shone the eyes of Sigurd, that the shield against him hung
Thereof is the Helm of Aweing, the wonder of earthly things,
And thereof is its very fellow, the War-coat all of gold,
"Alas!" quoth the smithying master, "it is mine, yet none of mine
For I saw by a glimmering light that hence would spring the deed,
Then Sigurd awhile was silent; but at last he answered and said:
If a curse the gold enwrappeth: but the deed will I surely do,
Or e'en in these peaceful acres anigh to the hands of all?"
Then Regin answered sweetly: "Hereof must a tale be told:
Bide sitting, thou son of Sigmund, on the heap of unwrought gold,
And deeds of my beholding ere the first of Kings was made.
What felt our souls of shaming, what knew our hearts of love?
We did and undid at pleasure, and repented nought thereof.
--Yea we were exceeding mighty--bear with me yet, my son;
For whiles can I scarcely think it that our days are wholly done.
"So as we dwelt came tidings that the Gods amongst us were,
And the people come from Asgard: then rose up hope and fear,
"It was Reidmar the Ancient begat me; and now was he waxen old,
Then he gave unto Fafnir my brother the soul that feareth nought,
"But next unto Otter my brother he gave the snare and the net
"Thus gave my father the gifts that might never be taken again;
For belike no fixed semblance we had in the days of old,
"So dwelt we, brethren and father; and Fafnir my brother fared
And the love of women left me, and the fame of sword and shield:
Were grown as the tools of my smithy; and all the world I knew,
Grim, cold-heart, and unmighty as the tempest-driven straw.
--Let be.--For Otter my brother saw seldom field or fold,
And he oftenest used that custom, whereof e'en now I told,
"Now as the years won over three folk of the heavenly halls
Grew aweary of sleepless sloth, and the day that nought befalls;
And the three were the heart-wise Odin, the Father of the Slain,
And Loki, the World's Begrudger, who maketh all labour vain,
And Haenir, the Utter-Blameless, who wrought the hope of man,
And his heart and inmost yearnings, when first the work began;--
--The God that was aforetime, and hereafter yet shall be
"Thus about the world they wended and deemed it fair and good,
And they loved their life-days dearly: so came they to the wood,
And the lea without a shepherd and the dwellings of the deer,
And unto a mighty water that ran from a fathomless mere.
Now that flood my brother Otter had haunted many a day
For its plenteous fruit of fishes; and there on the bank he lay
From the rock-wall of the river, and across its green wells cast;
And smote my brother Otter that his heart's life fled away,
And bore his man's shape with it, and beast-like there he lay,
Stark dead on the sun-lit blossoms: but the Evil God rejoiced,
"Then the three Gods waded the river, and no word Haenir spake,
"Then Loki takes up the quarry, and is e'en as a man again;
Beneath the untrodden mountains; and lo! a noble house,
And a hall with great craft fashioned, and made full glorious;
But night on the earth was falling; so scantly might they see
And into that noble dwelling the lords of God-home wend;
But the hall, what words shall tell it, how fair it rose aloft,
And the marvels of its windows, and its golden hangings soft,
--Long years agone was it builded, and where are its wonders now?
And bade rest to the weary feet that had worn the wild so long.
"Then spake the hall-abider: 'Where then is thy guileful mirth,
And thy hall-glee gone, O Loki? Come, Haenir, fashion now
Or hadst thou belike a brother, thy twin for evil and good,
That waked amidst thy slumber, and slumbered midst thy work?
Nay, Wise-one, art thou silent as a child amidst the mirk?
Ah, I know ye are called the Gods, and are mighty men at home,
But now with a guilt on your heads to no feeble folk are ye come,
Yet e'en then fresh was the winter, and the summer sun was hot,
And get ye back to your kingship and the driving on of the days
For ye wot well I am Reidmar, and that there ye lie red-hand
--Nay, Loki, naught avails it, well-fashioned is the net.
Come forth, my son, my war-god, and show the Gods their work,
"And there was I, I Regin, the smithier of the snare,
And high up Fafnir towered with the brow that knew no fear,
Nor may ye be Gods henceforward save the rightful ransom be paid.
And make them beasts beneath us, save to-day ye do our will,
"But Odin spake in answer, and his voice was awful and cold:
'Give righteous doom, O Reidmar! say what ye will of the Gold!'
"There is a desert of dread in the uttermost part of the world,
Where over a wall of mountains is a mighty water hurled,
Whose hidden head none knoweth, nor where it meeteth the sea;
And how the sea hangs balanced betwixt the curving lands,
And how all drew together for the first Gods' fashioning hands.
But now is all gone from him, save the craft of gathering gold,
And he heedeth nought of the summer, nor knoweth the winter cold,
"There Loki fareth, and seeth in a land of nothing good,
Far off o'er the empty desert, the reek of the falling flood
Go up to the floor of heaven, and thither turn his feet
As he weaveth the unseen meshes and the snare of strong deceit;
And the hush of the desert is felt amid the water's roar,
"There did the great Guile-master his toils and his tangles set,
And as wide as was the water, so wide was woven the net;
And as dim as the Elf's remembrance did the meshes of it show;
And he had no thought of sorrow, nor spared to come and go
Then back to his blinded soul was his ancient wisdom brought,
"But Loki took his man-shape, and laughed aloud and cried:
"Said Loki: 'How of the Elf-kind, do they love their latter life,
"Full sore the Elf lamented, but he came before the God
"Then Loki bade the Elf-king bring all to the upper day,
And he dight himself with his Godhead to bear the treasure away:
So there in the dim grey desert, before the God of Guile,
Great heaps of the hid-world's treasure the weary Elf must pile,
And Loki looked on laughing: but, when it all was done,
And the Elf was hurrying homeward, his finger gleamed in the sun:
"Then the Elf drew off the gold-ring and stood with empty hand
E'en where the flood fell over 'twixt the water and the land,
But the seed of woe to the world and the foolish wasters of men,
And grief to the generations that die and spring again:
Then he cried:
'There farest thou, Loki, and might I load thee worse
Amid my woe abideth another woe untold.
Two brethren and a father, eight kings my grief shall slay;
Lo, how the wilderness blossoms! Lo, how the lonely lands
Are waving with the harvest that fell from my gathering hands!'
"But Loki laughed in silence, and swift in Godhead went,
To the golden hall of Reidmar and the house of our content.
But when that world of treasure was laid within our hall
'Twas as if the sun were minded to live 'twixt wall and wall,
And all we stood by and panted. Then Odin spake and said:
"'O Kings, O folk of the Dwarf-kind, lo, the ransom duly paid!
Will ye have this sun of the ocean, and reap the fruitful field,
And garner up the harvest that earth therefrom shall yield?'
A ray of the sun of the morning that a naked sword throws out;
'Ye wait for my yea-saying
"Then Loki drew off the Elf-ring and cast it down on the heap,
And forth as the gold met gold did the light of its glory leap:
And ride to the golden glitter through evil deeds and good.
I will have my heart's desire, and do as the high Gods would.'
And into the night they gat them; but Odin turned by the door,
And we looked not, little we heeded, for we grudged his mastery;
"'O Kings, O folk of the Dwarfs, why then will ye covet and rue?
Lo, I look on the Curse of the Gold, and wrong amended by wrong,
And love by love confounded, and the strong abased by the strong;
And fruitful I waxed of works, and good and fair did they grow;
"They went and the Gold abided: but the words Allfather spake,
I call them back full often for that golden even's sake,
Yet little that hour I heard them, save as wind across the lea;
For the gold shone up on Reidmar and on Fafnir's face and on me.
And sore I loved that treasure: so I wrapped my heart in guile,
And sleeked my tongue with sweetness, and set my face in a smile,
Yet give good store to Fafnir for his goodly help and bold,
And deal me a little handful for my smithying-help that day.
But no little I desired, though for little I might pray;
And prayed I for much or for little, he answered me no more
And stare on the red rings' glory, and deem he was ever alone:
And never a word spake Fafnir, but his eyes waxed red and grim
As he looked upon our father, and noted the ways of him.
"The night waned into the morning, and still above the Hoard
Sat Reidmar clad in purple; but Fafnir took his sword,
And I took my smithying-hammer, and apart in the world we went;
But I came aback in the even, and my heart was heavy and spent;
"'I have slain my father Reidmar, that I alone might keep
The Gold of the darksome places, the Candle of the Deep.
And do no deed to repent of and leave no tale to tell.'
"More awful grew his visage as he spake the word of dread
And no more durst I behold him, but with heart a-cold I fled;
I fled from the glorious house my hands had made so fair,
As poor as the new-born baby with nought of raiment or gear:
I fled from the heaps of gold, and my goods were the eager will,
"Then unto this land I came, and that was long ago
It was Freyia had come among them to teach the weaving-lore.
And I grew the master of masters--Think thou how strange it is
"Yet oft mid all my wisdom did I long for my brother's part,
And Fafnir's mighty kingship weighed heavy on my heart
When the Kings of the earthly kingdoms would give me golden gifts
But lo, when I came to the doorway, great silence brooded there,
Nor bat nor owl would haunt it, nor the wood-wolves drew anear.
And I, who had lost their cunning, was a man in a deadly place,
A feeble man and a swordless in the lone destroyer's fold;
For I knew that the Worm was Fafnir, the Wallower on the Gold.
"So I gathered my strength and fled, and hid my shame again
Mid the foolish sons of men-folk; and the more my hope was vain,
"Long years, and long years after the tale of men-folk told
That the Fearful Face was my brother, that the blood
of the Worm was mine.
"This was ages long ago, and yet in that desert he dwells,
"Ah, I fell to the dreaming of dreams; and oft the gold I saw,
And the golden-fashioned Hauberk, clean-wrought without a flaw,
And the Helm that aweth the world; and I knew of Fafnir's heart
To thaw his winter away and the fruitful tide to bring.
Yea the God of all that is,--and no deed in the wide world done,
Then unto his feet leapt Sigurd and drew his stripling's sword,
And he cried: "Awake, O Master, for, lo, the day goes by,
And this too is an ancient story, that the sons of men-folk die,
And all save fame departeth. Awake! for the day grows late,
Then Regin groaned and wakened, sad-eyed and heavy-browed,
And weary and worn was he waxen, as a man by a burden bowed:
To avenge him for his father? Wilt thou win that Treasure of Gold
And heal the woe and the sorrow my heart hath endured o'erlong?"
Then Sigurd looked upon him with steadfast eyes and clear,
And Regin drooped and trembled as he stood the doom to hear:
_Of the forging of the Sword that is called The Wrath of Sigurd._
Then answered Regin the Master: "The world must be wide indeed
Mid many a storm of battle full well shall it endure."
Then Sigurd looked on the slayer, and never a word would speak:
Then Regin trembled and shrank, so bright his eyes outshone
As he turned about to the anvil, and smote the sword thereon;
And down amongst the ashes he cast the glittering hilt,
And turned his back on Regin and strode out through the door
And for many a day of spring-tide came back again no more.
But at last he came to the stithy and again took up the word:
"What hast thou done, O Master, in the forging of the sword?"
Then sweetly Regin answered: "Hard task-master art thou,
But lo, a blade of battle that shall surely please thee now!
Two moons are clean departed since thou lookedst toward the sky
And sawest the dim white circle amid the cloud-flecks lie;
And night and day have I laboured; and the cunning of old days
Yet Sigurd's eyes shone brighter, nor yet might Regin face
And set thy face as the flint the bale and the shame to bear:
For he that would win to the heavens, and be as the Gods on high
On the ashes and flaked-off iron, and no word did Sigurd say,
And was merry and blithe that even mid all imaginings.
But when the morrow was come he went to his mother and spake:
Where hast thou laid them, my mother?"
Then she looked upon him and said:
But Sigurd smiled upon it, and he said: "O Mother of Kings,
Well hast thou warded the war-glaive for a mirror of many things,
The message of my fathers, and the word of things to be:
Trusty hath been thy warding, but its hour is over now:
When the heaviest bolt of the thunder amidst the storm is hurled:
Then she felt his hands about her as he took the fateful sword,
Comes over the dark fell-ridges on the birth-tide of the sun,
So stood the Isle-king's daughter in that treasure-chamber fair.
But swift on his ways went Sigurd, and to Regin's house he came,
No words on his lip were gathered the Volsung child to greet,
"Will nothing serve thee save this blue steel and cold,
The bane of thy father's father, the fate of all his kin,
Then answered the eye-bright Sigurd: "If thou thy craft wilt do
Nought save these battle-gleanings shall be my helper true:
And what if thou begrudgest, and my battle-blade be dull,
Yet the hand of the Norns is lifted and the cup is over-full.
Repentst thou ne'er so sorely that thy kin must lie alow,
How much soe'er thou longest the world to overthrow,
And, doubting the gold and the wisdom, wouldst even now appease
Blind hate and eyeless murder, and win the world with these;
O'er-late is the time for repenting the word thy lips have said:
To do the deed or leave it: since thou hast shown mine eyes
The world that was aforetime, I see the world to be;
And woe to the tangling thicket, or the wall that hindereth me!
Is the slayer of the Serpent, and the scatterer of the Hoard."
Great waxed the gloom of Regin, and he said: "Thou sayest sooth
For none may turn him backward: the sword of a very youth
Shall one day end my cunning, as the Gods my joyance slew,
And many an one thereafter till it fail thee in thy need.
With the craft that was aforetime, and shall never be again,
Depart! lest the end overtake us ere thy work and mine be done,
But come again in the night-tide and the slumber of the sun,
When the sharded moon of April hangs round in the undark May."
Hither and thither a while did the heart of Sigurd sway
So the Norns drew Sigurd away, and the tide was an even of gold,
And he wended fair and lovely to the house of the feasting Kings.
But now when the moon was at full and the undark May begun,
Went Sigurd unto Regin mid the slumber of the sun,
Then he spake:
"Hail, Son of the Volsungs, the corner-stone is laid,
I have toiled and thou hast desired, and, lo, the fateful blade!"
Then Sigurd saw it lying on the ashes slaked and pale
And all adown to the blood-point a very flame there ran
But Regin cried to his harp-strings: "Before the days of men
I smithied the Wrath of Sigurd, and now is it smithied again:
And my hand alone hath done it, and my heart alone hath dared
To bid that man to the mountain, and behold his glory bared.
Ah, if the son of Sigmund might wot of the thing I would,
Then how were the ages bettered, and the world all waxen good!
Then how were the past forgotten and the weary days of yore,
And the hope of man that dieth and the waste that never bore!
Nor the clear-eyed hero hasten to the deedless ending of day.
And the road that leadeth nowhere, and the ship without a helm:
With the wisdom and gold thou wouldest, before I wend on my ways;
No word for a while spake Regin; but he hung his head adown
As a man that pondereth sorely, and his voice once more was grown
So they twain went forth abroad,
And the moon lay white on the river and lit the sleepless ford,
And it whirled about on the eddy till it met the edges bared,
Therewith was the Wrath of Sigurd laid soft in a golden sheath
_Of Gripir's Foretelling._
Now Sigurd backeth Greyfell on the first of the morrow morn,
And he rideth fair and softly through the acres of the corn;
The Wrath to his side is girded, but hid are the edges blue,
His wide grey eyes are happy, and his voice is sweet and soft,
As amid the mead-lark's singing he casteth song aloft:
Lo, lo, the horse and the rider! So once maybe it was,
When over the Earth unpeopled the youngest God would pass;
But never again meseemeth shall such a sight betide,
Till over a world unwrongful new-born shall Baldur ride.
So he comes to the hall of Gripir, and gleaming-green is it built
And he looks, and thereon is Gripir, the King exceeding old,
And here in the mountain-dwelling are two Kings of men alone."
But Sigurd spake: "Hail father! I am girt with the fateful sword
For all his desire was dead, and he lived as a God shall live,
Whereby men sail to the Eastward and the dawn of another day,
So the image of King Sigurd on the gleaming pavement lay.
Then great in the hall fair-pillared the voice of Gripir arose,
But the voice cried: "Sigurd, Sigurd! O great, O early born!
O hope of the Kings first fashioned! O blossom of the morn!
Short day and long remembrance, fair summer of the North!
One day shall the worn world wonder how first thou wentest forth!
"Arise, O Sigurd, Sigurd! in the night arise and go,
Thou shalt smite when the day-dawn glimmers through the folds of
God-home's foe:
"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd; bind up to cast abroad!
"O fair, O fearless, O mighty, how green are the garths of Kings,
"Ah the hand hath gathered and garnered, and empty is the hand,
As the long-forgotten dawning that was a while ago!
"Dawn, dawn, O mighty of men! and why wilt thou never awake,
"Dawn, now; but the house is silent, and dark is the purple blood
The slayer slain by the slain within the door and without.
"Short day and long remembrance! great glory for the earth!
O deeds of the Day triumphant! O word of Sigurd's worth!
It is done, and who shall undo it of all who were ever alive?
And the deeds to follow after, and all their deeds increase,
Till the uttermost field is foughten, and Baldur riseth in peace!
"Cry out, O waste, before him! O rocks of the wilderness, cry!
For the golden King shall be riding high-headed midst the drift:
So died the voice of Gripir from amidst the sunny close,
And the sound of hastening eagles from the mountain's feet arose,
And he heard the words and remembered, and knew them one by one.
Then he turned on the ancient Gripir with eyes that knew no guile
"Hast thou spoken and known
E'en so do I hearken thy words: for I wot how they deem it long
"Come, kin of the Gods," said Gripir, "come up and sit by my side
Then Sigurd came unto Gripir, and he kissed the wise-one's face,
Long Sigurd sat and marvelled at the mouth that might not lie,
But Sigurd spake unto Gripir:
"Long and lovely are thy days,
And again in the glimmering house-ways the golden Sigurd burned;
He stood outside in the sunlight, and tarried never a deal,
And the great sun just departing: then blood-red grew the west,
_Sigurd rideth to the Glittering Heath._
Again on the morrow morning doth Sigurd the Volsung ride,
And Regin, the Master of Masters, is faring by his side,
And they leave the dwelling of kings and ride the summer land,
Until at the eve of the day the hills are on either hand:
And they waken and look behind them, and lo, the dawning of day
And the little land of the Helper and its valley far away;
But the mountains rise before them, a wall exceeding great.
There is many a fond desire, and each day born anew;
"Yea and what else?" said Sigurd, "was thy tale but mockeries
And have I been drifted hither on a wind of empty lies?"
Then high my hope ariseth, and my heart is all afire
For the world I behold from afar, and the day that yet shall be;
And the heavens glowed above him like the bowl of Baldur's cup,
And a golden man was he waxen; as the heart of the sun he seemed,
And Regin followed after as a man bowed down by a load.
As a little space they abided while the latest star-world shrank;
When men are young and lovely there is many a thing to do,
And sweet is their fond desire and the dawn that springs anew."
The heart's desire accomplished, and life so long a day,
That the dawn should be forgotten ere the even was begun?"
Then Sigurd laughed and answered: "Fare forth, O glorious sun;
Bright end from bright beginning, and the mid-way good to tell,
And death, and deeds accomplished, and all remembered well!
Shall the day go past and leave us, and we be left with night,
To tread the endless circle, and strive in vain to smite?
But little and black was Regin as a fire that dieth out.
Day-long they rode the mountains by the crags exceeding old,
And again at the dawn-dusk's ending they stood upon their feet,
And Sigurd donned his war-gear nor his eyes would Regin meet.
A clear streak widened in heaven low down above the earth;
And above it lay the cloud-flecks, and the sun, anigh its birth,
Unseen, their hosts was staining with the very hue of blood,
And ruddy by Greyfell's shoulder the Son of Sigmund stood.
Then spake the Master of Masters: "What is thine hope this morn
That thou dightest thee, O Sigurd, to ride this world forlorn?"
I shall slay the Foe of the Gods, as thou badst me a while agone,
"O Child," said the King of the Dwarf-kind, "when the day at last
If not with the fruitful beams that the summer shall fulfill,
And he sprang aloft to the saddle as he spake the latest word,
But Regin turned from the glory with blinded eyes and dazed,
And lo, on the cloudy war-steed how another light there blazed,
And a great voice came from amidst it:
"O Regin, in good sooth,
That hath lain unspent and begrudged in the very heart of hate:
Let each do after his kind! I shall do the deeds of men;
To them shall I give my life-days, to the Gods my glory to keep.
If thou shalt indeed excel them and become the hope of the days,
Then me in turn hast thou conquered, and I shall be in turn
Thy fashioned brand of the battle through good and evil to burn,
And for all that cometh after, the Norns shall loose and bind."
So up and up they journeyed, and ever as they went
About the cold-slaked forges, o'er many a cloud-swept bent,
Betwixt the walls of blackness, by shores of the fishless meres,
And the fathomless desert waters, did Regin cast his fears,
And wrap him in desire; and all alone he seemed
As a God to his heirship wending, and forgotten and undreamed
Was all the tale of Sigurd, and the folk he had toiled among,
And into a narrow pass high-walled on either side
By the blackness of the mountains, and barred aback and in face
By the empty night of the shadow; a windless silent place:
So ever they wended upward, and the midnight hour was o'er,
No sound of the wind's uprising adown the night there ran:
Beneath the hoofs of Greyfell, as up and up he trod:
About the sea of midnight; and a dusky dawn they made,
A faint and glimmering twilight: So Sigurd strains his eyes,
And he sees how a land deserted all round about him lies
More changeless than mid-ocean, as fruitless as its floor:
As he leaps adown from Greyfell, and stands upon his feet,
_Sigurd slayeth Fafnir the Serpent_.
Nought Sigurd seeth of Regin, and nought he heeds of him,
As in watchful might and glory he strides the desert dim,
And behind him paceth Greyfell; but he deems the time o'erlong
Till he meet the great gold-warden, the over-lord of wrong.
One-eyed and ancient-seeming, in cloud-grey raiment clad;
A friendly man and glorious, and of visage smiling-glad:
Then content in Sigurd groweth because of his majesty,
"Hail Sigurd! Give me thy greeting ere thy ways alone thou wend!"
"Wilt thou smite, O Sigurd, Sigurd?" said the ancient mighty-one.
Whereby he wends to the water and the fathomless pool of old,
And so shall thine heart avail thee, and thy mighty fateful hand,
So spake the Son of Sigmund, and beheld no man anear,
By the drift of the rain unfurrowed, by the windy years unrent,
And forth from the dark it came, and into the dark it went.
Now the night wanes over Sigurd, and the ruddy rings he sees,
And his war-gear's fair adornment, and the God-folk's images;
But ever deemeth Sigurd that the sun brings back the day,
But now, how the rattling waxeth till he may not heed nor hark!
And he laughed at the heavens above him for he saw the sun arise,
But there was the ancient Fafnir, and the Face of Terror lay
"How lieth Sigurd the Volsung, and the Son of Sigmund the King?"
"O bitter father of Sigurd!--thou hast cleft mine heart atwain!"
"O Fafnir, speak of the Norns and the wisdom unforgot!"
"O Fafnir, tell of the Norns ere thy life thou layest adown!"
"O manifold is their kindred, and who shall tell them all?
"O child, O Strong Compeller? Unshapen is its hight;
And the uttermost field is stricken, last strife of thee and me."
"I am blind, O Strong Compeller, in the bonds of Death and Hell.
"Woe, woe! in the days passed over I bore the Helm of Dread,
I reared the Face of Terror, and the hoarded hate of the Dead:
I overcame and was mighty; I was wise and cherished my heart
Then Sigurd leaned on his sword, and a dreadful voice went by
Like the wail of a God departing and the War-God's misery;
And strong words of ancient wisdom went by on the desert wind,
The words that mar and fashion, the words that loose and bind;
Then all sank into silence, and the Son of Sigmund stood
On the torn and furrowed desert by the pool of Fafnir's blood,
And the Serpent lay before him, dead, chilly, dull, and grey;
And over the Glittering Heath fair shone the sun and the day,
There standeth Sigurd the Volsung, and leaneth on his sword,
And beside him now is Greyfell and looks on his golden lord,
Afoot he went o'er the desert, and he came unto Sigurd and stared
"O who art thou, and wherefore, and why art thou in the path?"
And long he lapped as a dog; but when he arose again,
But Regin cried: "O Dwarf-kind, O many-shifting folk,
O shapes of might and wonder, am I too freed from the yoke,
That binds my soul to my body a withered thing forlorn,
While the short-lived fools of man-folk so fair and oft are born?
And he looked and saw how Sigurd was sheathing the Flame of War,
"Thou sayest sooth," said Sigurd, "thy deed and mine is done:
But now our ways shall sunder, for here, meseemeth, the sun
Hath but little of deeds to do, and no love to win aback."
Then Sigurd spake as aforetime: "Thy deed and mine it was,
And now our ways shall sunder, and into the world will I pass."
But Regin darkened before him, and exceeding grim was he grown,
"Stand up, O Master," said Sigurd, "O Singer of ancient days,
"Take thou the Gold," quoth Sigurd, "for the ransom of my head!"
Then Regin crouched and darkened, and over the earth he hung;
Yea a King shall be my cook-boy and this heath my cooking-hall."
Then Regin spake to Sigurd: "Of this slaying wilt thou be free?
Then gather thou fire together and roast the heart for me,
That I may eat it and live, and be thy master and more;
Ash-grey was his visage waxen, and with open eyes he stared
On the height of heaven above him, and a fearful thing he seemed,
But Sigurd took the Heart, and wood on the waste he found,
And grew and died again, and lay like whitened bones;
And the dry sticks crackled amidst it, and alow the eagles came,
And seven they were by tale, and they pitched all round about
The cooking-fire of Sigurd, and sent their song-speech out:
Then Sigurd looketh on Regin, and he deemeth it overlong
But the hilt of the Wrath he handled, and Regin's heart he saw,
And how that the Foe of the Gods the net of death would draw;
For the first cried out in the desert: "O mighty Sigmund's son,
And the third: "How great is the feast if the eater eat aright
The Heart of the wisdom of old and the after-world's delight!"
And the seventh: "Arise, O Sigurd, lest the hour be overlate!
Lest love and hatred perish, lest the world forget its tale,
Then swift ariseth Sigurd, and the Wrath in his hand is bare,
And he looketh, and Regin sleepeth, and his eyes wide-open glare;
But lo, how the eyes of Sigurd the heart of the guileful behold,
And great is Allfather Odin, and upriseth the Curse of the Gold,
And there lay brother by brother a faded thing and wan.
But Sigurd cried in the desert: "So far have I wended on!
_How Sigurd took to him the Treasure of the Elf Andvari._
Now Sigurd eats of the heart that once in the Dwarf-king lay,
The hoard of the wisdom begrudged, the might of the earlier day.
Then wise of heart was he waxen, but longing in him grew
To sow the seed he had gotten, and till the field he knew.
So he leapeth aback of Greyfell, and rideth the desert bare,
And the hollow slot of Fafnir, that led to the Serpent's lair.
Then long he rode adown it, and the ernes flew overhead,
And tidings great and glorious of that Treasure of old they said.
He saw the earth-old dwelling, the dread Gold-wallower's home:
'Twas a mountain, blind without, and within was its plenishing
Fell in on the tawny gold-heaps of the ancient hapless Hoard:
Gold gear of hosts unburied, and the coin of cities dead,
Lay 'neath the spoils of the mighty and the ruddy rings of yore:
The hope of Loki's finger, the Ransom's utmost grain;
Then laughed the Son of Sigmund, and stooped to the golden land,
And gathered that first of the harvest and set it on his hand;
And he did on the Helm of Aweing, and the Hauberk all of gold,
And he set his hand to the labour and put forth his kingly might;
The innermost earth's adornment, and rings for the nameless made;
And the gear of Sigurd rattled in the flood of moonlight wan;
"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! let the gold shine free and clear!
"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! for thy tale is well begun,
"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd, and gladden all thine heart!
For the world shall make thee merry ere thou and she depart."
"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! for the ways go green below,
"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! for the strife awaits thine hand,
"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd! But how shall store-house hold
That glory of thy winning and the tidings to be told?"
When the steed was fully laden; then Sigurd taketh the rein
And over the brow he clomb, and there beyond was the world,
A place of many mountains and great crags together hurled.
So down to the west he wendeth, and goeth swift and light,
_How Sigurd awoke Brynhild upon Hindfell._
By long roads rideth Sigurd amidst that world of stone,
And somewhat south he turneth; for he would not be alone,
From the wrack of the Glittering Heath, and Fafnir's golden lair.
From out of the tangled crag-walls, amidst the cloud-land grey
Comes up a mighty mountain, and it is as though there burns
A torch amidst of its cloud-wreath; so thither Sigurd turns,
And settle thick on the mountain, and hide its head from sight;
Cloudless the mountain riseth against the sunset sky,
And the mountain is black above it, and below is it dark and dun;
Night falls, but yet rides Sigurd, and hath no thought of rest,
And he rideth a rift of the mountain, and all is dark therein,
And a flood of light poured inward the doubtful dawning blinds:
So swift he rideth thither and the mouth of the breach he finds,
And sitteth awhile on Greyfell on the marvellous thing to gaze:
For lo, the side of Hindfell enwrapped by the fervent blaze,
Great groweth the heart of Sigurd with uttermost desire,
And he crieth kind to Greyfell, and they hasten up, and nigher,
The wind that is born within it; nor ever aside is it driven
And the gold of the uttermost waters is waxen wan and pale.
And crieth aloud to Greyfell, and rides at the wildfire's heart;
As it beareth the mighty tidings to the very heavenly floor:
But he rideth through its roaring as the warrior rides the rye,
And winds about his war-helm and mingles with his hair,
But nought his raiment dusketh or dims his glittering gear;
Then it fails and fades and darkens till all seems left behind,
And dawn and the blaze is swallowed in mid-mirk stark and blind.
But forth a little further and a little further on
And all is calm about him, and he sees the scorched earth wan
Beneath a glimmering twilight, and he turns his conquering eyes,
And a ring of pale slaked ashes on the side of Hindfell lies;
A wall of the tiles of Odin wrought clear without a flaw,
The gold by the silver gleaming, and the ruddy by the white;
And the blazonings of their glory were done upon them bright,
As the earliest wind of dawning uprose on Hindfell's face
But the Wrath cried out in answer as Sigurd leapt adown
To the wasted soil of the desert by that rampart of renown;
But, lo, to the gate he cometh, and the doors are open wide,
Or a mock of the Giant people that shall fade in the morning air:
And the ruddy set by the white, and the silver by the gold;
But within the garth that it girdeth no work of man is set,
But the utmost head of Hindfell ariseth higher yet;
And below in the very midmost is a Giant-fashioned mound,
Piled high as the rims of the Shield-burg above the level ground;
So there was Sigurd alone; and he went from the shielded door,
Set forth to the eyeless desert on the tower-top of the world,
And clad from head to foot-sole in pale grey-glittering gear,
So the eager edges he setteth to the Dwarf-wrought battle-coat
Wide-eyed on the dawning she gazeth, too glad to change or smile,
"O, what is the thing so mighty that my weary sleep hath torn,
And rent the fallow bondage, and the wan woe over-worn?"
He said: "The hand of Sigurd and the Sword of Sigmund's son,
But she said: "Where then is Odin that laid me here alow?
Long lasteth the grief of the world, and man-folk's tangled woe!"
"He dwelleth above," said Sigurd, "but I on the earth abide,
But therewith the sun rose upward and lightened all the earth,
But they twain arose together, and with both her palms outspread,
"All hail O Day and thy Sons, and thy kin of the coloured things!
Then they turned and were knit together; and oft and o'er again
Then Sigurd looketh upon her, and the words from his heart arise:
O who art thou that lovest? I am Sigurd, e'en as I told;
I have slain the Foe of the Gods, and gotten the Ancient Gold;
O who art thou that lovest, thou fairest of all things born?
She said: "I am she that loveth: I was born of the earthly folk,
But Allfather came against me and the God in his wrath arose;
That they laugh, and the world's weal waxeth, that they frown and
Then the fearless heart shall I wed, and bring the best to birth,
"Then somewhat smiled Allfather; and he spake: 'So let it be!
The doom thereof abideth; the doom of me and thee.
Yet long shall the time pass over ere thy waking-day be born:
And there the Sleep-thorn pierced me, and the slumber on me fell,
Now I am she that loveth; and the day is nigh at hand
And there shall hand meet hand, and heart by heart shall beat,
As oft in the battle's beginning ye vex the steed with the rein,
"Know thou, most mighty of men, that the Norns shall order all,
And yet without thine helping shall no whit of their will befall;
"Be wise, and cherish thine hope in the freshness of the days,
Though it seemeth our very sorrow, and the grief of thee and me.
Yea, and if thou fall before him, in him shalt thou live again,
For I am she that loveth, and I know what thou wouldst teach
Then words were weary and silent, but oft and o'er again
Then spake the Son of Sigmund: "Fairest, and most of worth,
Hast thou seen the ways of man-folk and the regions of the earth?
So she took his right hand meekly, nor any word would say,
Not e'en of love or praising, his longing to delay;
As she told of the hidden matters whereby the world is moved:
And how man shall bear and forbear, and be master of all that is;
"I saw the body of Wisdom, and of shifting guise was she wrought,
And I woke and might not remember, nor betwixt her tangle deem:
All things I have told thee of Wisdom are but fleeting images
And Fafnir's Bed is gleaming, and green go the downward ways.
The road to the children of men and the deeds that thou shalt do
So they climb the burg of Hindfell, and hand in hand they fare,
Till all about and above them is nought but the sunlit air,
And there close they cling together rejoicing in their mirth;
For far away beneath them lie the kingdoms of the earth,
The beds of bane and healing, the crafts that slay and save,
The temple of God and the Doom-ring, the cradle and the grave.
Then spake the Victory-Wafter: "O King of the Earthly Age,
There eve by eve I tarried mid the speech and the lays of kings;
There noon by noon I wandered and plucked the blossoming things;
The little land of Lymdale by the swirling river's side,
Where Brynhild once was I called in the days ere my father died;
The little land of Lymdale 'twixt the woodland and the sea,
From his hand then draweth Sigurd Andvari's ancient Gold;
No change, and no beginning, no flaw for God to mend:
Then Sigurd cries: "O Brynhild, now hearken while I swear,
And she cried: "O Sigurd, Sigurd, now hearken while I swear
That the day shall die for ever and the sun to blackness wear,
Ere I forget thee, Sigurd, as I lie 'twixt wood and sea
In the little land of Lymdale and the house that fostered me!"
Then he set the ring on her finger and once, if ne'er again,
So the day grew old about them and the joy of their desire,
And eve and the sunset came, and faint grew the sunset fire,
And the shadowless death of the day was sweet in the golden tide;
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Collection of German Authors, vol. 1-47            "
Series for the Young, vol. 1-30                    "
The Heir Presumptive. By _Florence Marryat_, 2 vols.
Othmar. By _Ouida_, 3 vols.
The Luck of the Darrells. By _James Payn_, 2 vols.
A Girton Girl. By Mrs. _Annie Edwardes_, 2 vols.
Andromeda. By _George Fleming_, 2 vols.
Maruja. By _Bret Harte_, 1 vol.
A Second Life. By Mrs. _Alexander_, 3 vols.
Colonel Enderby's Wife. By _Lucas Malet_, 2 vols.
A Family Affair. By _Hugh Conway_, 2 vols.
The Mother's Recompense 2 v.
In that State of Life 1 v.
"A nine Days' Wonder" 1 v.
Saint James's 1 v.
Jack Sheppard (w. portrait) 1 v.
The Goldsmith's Wife 2 v.
Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse (with Portrait) 2 v.
"All for Greed," Author of--
Marjorie Daw and other Tales 1 v.
The Giant's Robe 2 v.
A Year's Housekeeping in South Africa 1 v.
_vide_ Disraeli.
Thornicroft's Model 2 v.
St. Simon's Niece 2 v.
The strange Adventures of a Phaeton 2 v.
Lady Silverdale's Sweetheart 1 v.
Mr. Pisistratus Brown, M.P., etc. 1 v.
Shandon Bells (w. portrait) 2 v.
Tales from-- 1 v.
Country Quarters (w. portrait) 2 v.
Lady Audley's Secret 2 v.
Eleanor's Victory 2 v.
John Marchmont's Legacy 2 v.
The Doctor's Wife 2 v.
Sir Jasper's Tenant 2 v.
The Lady's Mile 2 v.
Fenton's Quest 2 v.
Dead Men's Shoes 2 v.
Joshua Haggard's Daughter 2 v.
Wyllard's Weird 3 v.
Not wisely, but too well 2 v.
Rab and his Friends, and other Tales 1 v.
A Selection from her Poetry (w. portrait) 1 v.
Poetical Works (with portrait) 4 v.
Pelham (with portrait) 1 v.
The new Timon; St Stephen's 1 v.
What will he do with it? 4 v.
The Pilgrim's Progress 1 v.
Poetical Works (w. portrait) 1 v.
"Jennie of 'the Prince's'" 2 v.
Nell--on and off the Stage 2 v.
Poetical Works (w. portrait) 5 v.
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches 4 v.
Treherne's Temptation 2 v.
"Chronicles of the Schoenberg-Cotta Family," Author of--
A Cruise upon Wheels 2 v.
A Fight with Fortune 2 v.
My Lady's Money & Percy and the Prophet 1 v.
Jezebel's Daughter 2 v.
"Cometh up as a Flower," Author of--
_vide_ Broughton.
The Spy (w. portrait) 1 v.
A Woman's Thoughts about Women 1 v.
Agatha's Husband 1 v.
Christian's Mistake 1 v.
Bread upon the Waters 1 v.
Studies from Life 1 v.
The Woman's Kingdom 2 v.
Faith Unwin's Ordeal 1 v.
Winifred's Wooing, and other Tales 1 v.
Esther Hill's Secret 2 v.
Sylvia's Choice;
_vide_ George Eliot's Life.
War Correspondence 1877 by A. Forbes, etc. 3 v.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (w. portrait) 2 v.
Pictures from Italy 1 v.
Somebody's Luggage;
Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings; Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy 1 v.
Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions; Mugby Junction 1 v.
Contarini Fleming (w. portrait) 1 v.
Her Majesty's Tower 4 v.
Ought we to Visit her? 2 v.
Barbara's History 2 v.
Debenham's Vow 2 v.
Untrodden Peaks and unfrequented Valleys 1 v.
My Experiences of the War between France and Germany 2 v.
See also "Daily News," War Correspondence.
I have Lived and Loved 2 v.
Although he was a Lord, etc. 1 v.
Corisande, etc. 1 v.
"Found Dead," Author of--
_vide_ James Payn.
A stormy Life 2 v.
Mrs. Gerald's Niece 2 v.
The Notary's Daughter 1 v.
Sylvia's Lovers 2 v.
A Dark Night's Work 1 v.
Cousin Phillis, and other Tales 1 v.
Geraldine Hawthorne _vide_ "Miss Molly."
The Curate's Home 1 v.
Rome and the newest Fashions in Religion 1 v.
The Dean's Daughter 2 v.
A Life's Lessons 2 v.
My Heart's in the Highlands 2 v.
"Guy Livingstone," Author of--
Helen's Babies & Other People's Children 1 v.
One Tramp; Mrs. Mayburn's Twins 1 v.
_v_. Gordon's Journals.
Far from the Madding Crowd 2 v.
Martin's Vineyard 1 v.
Drift from Two Shores 1 v.
The Twins of Table Mountain, etc. 1 v.
Jeff Briggs's Love Story, etc. 1 v.
Passages from the English Note-Books 2 v.
"Heir of Redclyffe," Author of--
_vide_ Yonge.
Venetian Life (w. portr.) 1 v.
A Fearful Responsibility, etc. 1 v.
A Woman's Reason 2 v.
Dr. Breen's Practice 1 v.
Tom Brown's School Days 1 v.
Sketch Book (w. portrait) 1 v.
Chronicles of Wolfert's Roost 1 v.
Morley Ernstein (w. portrait) 1 v.
Rose d'Albret 1 v.
The Madonna of the Future, etc. 1 v.
Eugene Pickering, etc. 1 v.
The Siege of London, etc. 1 v.
A Book about Doctors 2 v.
A Woman in Spite of herself 2 v.
Jupiter's Daughters 1 v.
Ginx's Baby; Lord Bantam 2 v.
"Jennie of 'the Prince's,'" Author of--
_vide_ Mrs. Buxton.
"John Halifax," Author of--
_vide_ Mrs. Craik.
"Johnny Ludlow," Author of--
_vide_ Mrs. Wood.
"Joshua Davidson," Author of--
_vide_ E. Lynn Linton.
Sybil's Second Love 2 v.
Forget-me-nots 2 v.
_vide_ Thomas a Kempis.
Romance of Student Life abroad 1 v.
His Letters and Memories of his Life edited by his Wife 2 v.
Flitters, Tatters, and the Counsellor, etc. 1 v.
Ida May 1 v.
"Last of the Cavaliers," Author of--
_vide_ Miss Parr.
The Dodd Family abroad 3 v.
A Day's Ride: a Life's Romance 2 v.
The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly 2 v.
That Boy of Norcott's 1 v.
St. Patrick's Eve; Paul Gosslett's Confessions 1 v.
The World well Lost 2 v.
Under which Lord? 2 v.
With a Silken Thread etc. 1 v.
Todhunters' at Loanin' Head etc. 1 v.
The Girl of the Period, etc. 1 v.
Poetical Works (w. portrait) 3 v.
_vide_ Bulwer.
History of England (w. portrait) 10 v.
(See also Trevelyan).
Justin McCarthy:
A short History of our own Times 2 v.
A History of the Four Georges vol. 1.
George MacDonald:
The Vicar's Daughter 2 v.
The Gifts of the Child Christ, etc. 1 v.
Charles McKnight:
Miriam's Marriage 2 v.
Pictures across the Channel 2 v.
"Mademoiselle Mori," Author of--
_vide_ Stanhope.
Colonel Enderby's Wife 2 v.
The Stolen White Elephant, etc. 1 v.
Jacob Faithful (w. portrait) 1 v.
The Privateer's-Man 1 v.
The King's Own 1 v.
Love's Conflict 2 v.
Her Father's Name 2 v.
Her World against a Lie 2 v.
The Fair-haired Alda 2 v.
With Cupid's Eyes 2 v.
Facing the Footlights (w. portrait) 2 v.
The Ghost of Charlotte Cray, etc. 1 v.
Mrs. Mainwaring's Journal 1 v.
Life's Aftermath 1 v.
As he comes up the Stair, etc. 1 v.
Sam's Sweetheart 2 v.
Eyre's Acquittal 2 v.
"Mehalah," Author of--
The Queen's Maries 2 v.
Roy's Wife 2 v.
Beauchamp's Career 2 v.
_vide_ Robert Lord Lytton.
"Miss Molly," Author of--
"Molly Bawn," Author of--
Loys, Lord Berresford, etc. 1 v.
Her First Appearance, etc. 1 v.
A Maiden all Forlorn, etc. 1 v.
Poetical Works (w. portrait) 5 v.
Lady Morgan's Memoirs 3 v.
French Pictures in English Chalk (1st Series) 2 v.
The Russians of To-day 1 v.
French Pictures in English Chalk (2nd Series) 2 v.
People I have met 1 v.
"My little Lady," Author of--
_vide_ E. Frances Poynter.
"Nina Balatka," Author of--
_vide_ Anthony Trollope.
"No Church," Author of--
_vide_ Household Words.
The Minister's Wife 2 v.
The Rector, and the Doctor's Family 1 v.
The greatest Heiress in England 2 v.
He that will not when he may 2 v.
The Wizard's Son 3 v.
A Leaf in the Storm; A Dog of Flanders and other Stories 1 v.
Cecil Castlemaine's Gage 1 v.
Two little Wooden Shoes 1 v.
Signa (w. portrait) 3 v.
Frescoes, etc. 1 v.
Basil Godfrey's Caprice 2 v.
Katherine's Trial 1 v.
Ben Milner's Wooing 1 v.
"Paul Ferroll," Author of--
Year after Year 1 v.
Why Paul Ferroll killed his Wife 1 v.
Gwendoline's Harvest 1 v.
Like Father, like Son 2 v.
Cecil's Tryst 1 v.
A Woman's Vengeance 2 v.
Murphy's Master 1 v.
Walter's Word 2 v.
What He cost Her 2 v.
Less Black than we're Painted 2 v.
A Grape from a Thorn 2 v.
The Canon's Ward 2 v.
Poems and Essays. Edited with a new Memoir by John H. Ingram 1 v.
Select Poetical Works (w. portrait) 1 v.
My little Lady 2 v.
The Prince Consort's Speeches and Addresses 1 v.
"It is never too late to mend" 2 v.
"Love me little love me long" 1 v.
"Recommended to Mercy," Author of--
_vide_ W. Besant.
So very Human 3 v.
Far above Rubies 2 v.
The Earl's Promise 2 v.
Mortomley's Estate 2 v.
Carlino and other Stories 1 v.
A Sailor's Sweetheart 2 v.
The Shipowner's Daughter 2 v.
Joan Merryweather and other Tales 1 v.
Gideon's Rock 1 v.
Waverley (w. portrait) 1 v.
Rob Roy 1 v.
Plays and Poems (with portrait) (_Second Edition_) compl. 7 v.
_Shakespeare's_ Plays may also be had in 37 numbers, at M. 0,30.
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A Selection from his Poems 1 v.
Shut up in Paris (_Second Edition, enlarged_) 1 v.
A Sentimental Journey (w. portrait) 1 v.
"Still Waters," Author of--
"The Story of Elizabeth," Author of--
_v_. Miss Thackeray.
Uncle Tom's Cabin (w. portrait) 2 v.
A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin 2 v.
The Minister's Wooing 1 v.
"Sunbeam Stories," Author of--
_vide_ Mackarness.
Gulliver's Travels 1 v.
Ballads and other Poems 1 v.
The Paris Sketch Book (w. portrait) 2 v.
Bluebeard's Keys 1 v.
A narrow Escape 2 v.
Poetical Works (with portrait) 1 v.
_vide_ Mrs. Riddell.
The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay (w. portrait) 4 v.
Selections from the Writings of Lord Macaulay 2 v.
_vide_ Murray.
Can you forgive her? 3 v.
He knew he was Right 3 v.
The Way we live now 4 v.
An Eye for an Eye 1 v.
The Duke's Children 3 v.
Dr. Wortle's School 1 v.
Ayala's Angel 3 v.
Frau Frohmann, etc. 1 v.
Alice Dugdale, etc. 1 v.
La Mere Bauche, etc. 1 v.
The Mistletoe Bough, etc. 1 v.
An Old Man's Love 1 v.
The Maritime Alps and their Seaboard 2 v.
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Passages from the Diary of a late Physician 2 v.
Ten Thousand a-Year 3 v.
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_vide_ Justin McCarthy.
The wide, wide World 1 v.
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Verner's Pride 3 v.
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St. Martin's Eve 2 v.
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A Life's Secret 1 v.
George Canterbury's Will 2 v.
The Foggy Night at Offord, etc. 1 v.
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The Dove in the Eagle's Nest 2 v.
Stray Pearls (w. portrait) 2 v.
The Armourer's Prentices 2 v.
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