WHY, dreams from dreams in dreams remembered! naught

Save this, alas! that once it seemed I thought

I wandered dim with someone, but I knew

Not who; most beautiful and good and true,

Yet sad through suffering; with curl-crowned brow,

Soft eyes and voice; so white she haunts me now:—

And when, and where?—At night in dreamland.

She

Led me athwart a flower-showered lea

Where trammeled puckered pansy and the pea;

Spread stains of pale-rod poppies rinced of rain,

So gorged with sun their hurt hearts ached with pain;

Heaped honeysuckles; roses lavishing beams,

Wherein I knew were huddled little dreams

Which laughed coy, hidden merriment and there

Blew quick gay kisses fragrancing the air.

[pg 2]

And where a river bubbled through the sward

A mist lay sleepily; and it was hard

To see whence sprung it, to what seas it led,

How broadly spread and what it was it fled

So ceasless in its sighs, and bickering on

Into romance or some bewildering dawn

Of wisest legend from the storied wells

Of lost Baranton, where old Merlin dwells,

Nodding a white poll and a grand, gray beard

As if some Lake Ladyé he, listening, heard,

Who spake like water, danced like careful showers

With blown gold curls thro' drifts of wild-thorn flowers;

Loose, lazy arms in graceful movement tossed,

Float flower-like down a woodland vista, lost

In some peculiar note that wrings a tear

Slow down his withered cheek. And then steals near

Her sweet, lascivious brow's white wonderment,

And gray rude eyes, and hair which hath the scent

Of the wildwood Brécéliand's perfumes

In Brittany; and in it one red bloom's

Blood-drop thrust deep, and so "Sweet Viviane!"

All the glad leaves lisp like a young, soft rain

From top to top, until a running surge

The dark, witch-haunted solitude will urge,

That shakes and sounds and stammers as from sleep

Some giant were aroused; and with a leap

[pg 3]

A samite-gauzy creature, glossy white,

Showers mocking kisses fast and, like a light

Beat by a gust to flutter and then done,

From Brécéliande and Merlin she is gone.

But still he sits there drowsing with his dreams;

A wondrous cohort hath he; many as gleams

That stab the moted mazes of a beech;

And each grave dream hath its own magic speech

To sting to tears his old eyes heavy—two

Hang, tangled brilliants, in his beard like dew:

And still faint murmurs of courts brave and fair,

And forms of Arthur and proud Guenevere,

Grave Tristram and rare Isoud and stout Mark,

Bold Launcelot, chaste Galahad the dark

Of his weak mind, once strong, glares up with, then,

—The instant's fostered blossoms—die again.

A roar of tournament, a rippling stir

Of silken lists that ramble into her,

That white witch-mothered beauty, Viviane,

The vast Brécéliande and dreams again.

Then Dagonet, King Arthur's fool, trips there,

A waggish cunning; glittering on his hair

A tinsel crown; and then will slightly sway

Thick leaves and part, and there Morgane the Fay

With haughty wicked eyes and lovely face

Studies him steady for a little space.

"

THOU askest with thy studious eyes again,

Here where the restless forest hears the main

Toss in a troubled sleep and moan. Ah, sweet,

With joy and passion the kind hour's replete;

And what wild beauty here! where roughly run

Huge forest shadows from the westering sun,

The wood's a subdued power gentle as

Yon tame wild-things, that in the moss and grass

Gaze with their human eyes. Here grow the lines

Of pale-starred green; and where yon fountain shines

Urned in its tremulous ferns, rest we upon

This oak-trunk of God's thunder overthrown

Years, years agone; not where 'tis rotted brown

But where the thick bark's firm and overgrown

Of clambering ivy blackly berried; where

Wild musk of wood decay just tincts the air,

As if some strange shrub on some whispering way,

In some dewed dell, while dreaming of one May,

In longing languor weakly tried to wake

One sometime blossom and could only make

Ghosts of such dead aromas as it knew,

And shape a specter, budding thin as dew,

To haunt these sounding miles of solitude.

[pg 5]

Troubled thou askest, Morgane, and the mood,

Unfathomed in thine eyes, glows rash and deep

As that in some wild-woman's found on sleep

By some lost knight upon a precipice,

Whom he hath wakened with a laughing kiss.

As that of some frail, elfin lady white

As if of watery moonbeams, filmy dight,

Who waves diaphanous beauty on some cliff

That drowsing purrs with moon-drenched pines; but if

The lone knight follow, foul fiends rise and drag

Him crashing down, while she, tall on the crag,

Triumphant mocks him with glad sorcery

Till all the wildwood echoes shout with glee.

As that bewildering mystery of a tarn,

Some mountain water, which the mornings scorn

To anadem with fire and leave gray;

To which some champion cometh when the Day

Hath tired of breding on his proud, young head

Flame-furry blooms and, golden chapletéd,

Sits rosy, trembling with full love for Night,

Who cometh sandaled; dark in crape; the light

Of her good eyes a marvel; her vast hair

Tortuous with stars,—as in some shadowy lair

The eyes of hunted wild things burn with rage,—

And on large bosoms doth his love assuage.

[pg 6]

"He, coming thither in that haunted place,

Stoops low to quaff cool waters, when his face

Meets gurgling fairy faces in a ring

That jostle upward babbling; beckoning

Him deep to wonders secret built of old

By some dim witch: 'A city walled with gold,

With beryl battlements and paved with pearls,

Slim, lambent towers wrought of foamy swirls

Of alabaster, and that witch to love,

More beautiful to love than queens above.'—

He pauses troubled, but a wizard power,

In all his bronzen harness that mad hour

Plunges him—whither? what if he should miss

Those cloudy beauties and that creature's kiss?

Ah, Morgane, that same power Accolon

Saw potent in thine eyes and it hath drawn

Him deep to plunge—and to what breathless fate?—

Bliss?—which, too true, he hath well quaffed of late!

But, there!—may come what stealthy-footed Death

With bony claws to clutch away his breath!

And make him loveless to those eyes, alas!—

Fain must I speak that vision; thus it was:

"In sleep one plucked me some warm fleurs-de-lis,

Larger than those of earth; and I might see

Their woolly gold, loose, webby woven thro',—

[pg 7]

Like fluffy flames spun,—gauzy with fine dew.

And 'asphodels!' I murmured; then, 'these sure

The Eden amaranths, so angel pure

That these alone may pluck them; aye and aye!

But with that giving, lo, she passed away

Beyond me on some misty, yearning brook

With some sweet song, which all the wild air took

With torn farewells and pensive melody

Touching to tears, strange, hopeless utterly.

So merciless sweet that I yearned high to tear

Those ingot-cored and gold-crowned lilies fair;

Yet over me a horror which restrained

With melancholy presence of two pained

And awful, mighty eyes that cowed and held

Me weeping while that sad dirge died or swelled

Far, far on endless waters borne away:

A wild bird's musick smitten when the ray

Of dawn it burned for graced its drooping head,

And the pale glory strengthened round it dead;

Daggered of thorns it plunged on, blind in night,

The slow blood ruby on its plumage white.

"Then, then I knew these blooms which she had given

Were strays of parting grief and waifs of Heaven

For tears and memories; too delicate

For eyes of earth such souls immaculate!

[pg 8]

But then—my God! my God! thus these were left!

I knew then still! but of that song bereft—

That rapturous wonder grasping after grief—

Beyond all thought—weak thought that would be thief."

And bowed and wept into his hands and she

Sorrowful beheld; and resting at her knee

Raised slow her oblong lute and smote its chords;

But ere the impulse saddened into words

Said: "And didst love me as thy lips have spake

No visions wrought of sleep might such love shake.

Fast is all Love in fastness of his power,

With flame reverberant moated stands his tower;

Not so built as to chink from fact a beam

Of doubt and much less of a doubt from dream;

Such, the alchemic fires of Love's desires,

Which hug this like a snake, melt to gold wires

To chord the old lyre new whereon he lyres."

So ceased and then, sad softness in her eye

Sang to his dream a questioning reply:

And in her hair wept softly and her breast

Rose and was wet with tears; like as, distressed,

Night steals on Day rain sobbing thro' her curls.

"Tho' tears become thee even as priceless pearls,

Weep not for love's sake! mine no gloom of doubt,

But woe for sweet love's death such dreams brought out.

Nay, nay; crowned, throned and flame-anointed he

Kings our twin-kingdomed hearts eternally.

Love, high in Heaven beginning and to cease

No majesty when hearts are laid at peace;

But reign supreme, if souls have wrought as well,

A god in Heaven or a god in Hell.

Yea, Morgane, for the favor of his face

All our rich world of love I will retrace:

"Hurt in that battle where thy brother strove

With those five kings thou wot'st of, dearest love,

[pg 10]

Wherein the five were worsted, I was brought

To some king's castle on my shield, methought,—

Out of the grind of spears and roar of swords,

From the loud shields of battle-bloody lords,

Culled from the mountained slain where Havoc sprawled

Gorged to her eyes with carnage, growling crawled;—

By some tall damsels tiremaids of some queen

Stately and dark, who moved as if a sheen

Of starlight spread her presence; and she came

With healing herbs and searched my wounds. A dame

So marvelous in raiment silvery

I feared lest some attendant chaste were she

To that high Holy Grael, which Arthur hath

Sought ever widely by hoar wood and path;—

Thus not for me, a worldly one, to love,

Who loved her even to wonder; skied above

His worship as our moon above the Main,

That passions upward yearning in great pain,

And suffers wearily from year to year,

She peaceful pitiless with virgin cheer.—

Ah, ideal love, as merciless as fate!

And, oh, that savage aching which must wait

For its fulfillment, tortured love in tears,

Until that beauty dreamed of many years

Bends over one from luminous skies, so grand

One's weakness fears to touch its mastering hand,

[pg 11]

And hesitates and stammers nothings weak,

And loves and loves with love that can not speak!

Ah, there's the tyranny that breeds despair;

Breaks hearts whose strong youth by one golden hair

Coiled 'round the throat is sooner strangled dumb

Than by a glancing dagger thrust from gloom

Of an old arras at the very hour

One thought one safest in one's guarded tower.—

Thus, Morgane, worshiping that lady I

Was speechless; longing now to live, now die,

As her fine face suggested secrets of

Some passion kin to mine, or scorn of love

That dragged heroic humbleness to her feet,

For one long look that spake and made such sweet.

Ah, never dreamed I of what was to be,—

Nay! nay! how could I? while that agony

Of doubtful love denied my heart too much,

Too much to dream of that perfection such

As was to grant me boisterous hours of life

And sever all the past as with a knife!

"One night a tempest scourged and beat and lashed

The writhing forest and vast thunders crashed

Clamorous with clubs of leven, and anon,

Between the thunder pauses, seas would groan

Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured

[pg 12]

From where it soared to maim it with his sword.

I, with eyes partly lidded, seemed to see

That cloudy, wide-wrenched night's eternity

Yawn hells of golden ghastliness; and sweep

Distending foams tempestuous up each steep

Of furious iron, where pale mermaids sit

With tangled hair black-blown, who, bit by bit,

Chant glimmering; beckoning on to strangling arms

Some hurt bark hurrying in the ravenous storm's

Resistless exultation; till there came

One breaker mounting inward, all aflame

With glow-worm green, to boom against the cliff

Its thunderous bulk—and there, sucked pale and stiff,

Tumbled in eddies up the howling rocks

My dead, drawn face; eyes lidless; matted locks

Oozed close with brine; tossed upward merrily

By streaming mermaids.—Madly seemed to see

The vampire echoes of the hoarse wood, who,

Collected, sought me; down the casement drew

Wet, shuddering fingers sharply; thronging fast

Up hooting turrets, fell thick screaming, cast

Down bastioned battlements trooped whistling off;

From the wild woodland growled a backward scoff.—

Then far away, hoofs of a thousand gales,

As wave rams wave up windy bluffs of Wales,

Loosed from the groaning hills, the cohorts loud,

[pg 13]

Spirits of thunder, charioteered of cloud,

Roared down the rocking night cored with the glare

Of fiery eyeballs swimming; their drenched hair

Blown black as rain unkempt back from black brows,

Wide mouths of storm that voiced a hell carouse

And bulged tight cheeks with wind, rolled riotous by

Ruining to ruinous cliffs to headlong die.

"Once when the lightning made the casement glare

Squares touched to gold, between it rose her hair,

As if a raven's wing had cut the storm

Death-driven seaward; and a vague alarm

Stung me with terrors of surmise where hope

As yet pruned weak wings crippled by their scope.

And, lo, she kneeled low, radiant, wonderful,

Lawn-raimented and white; kneeled low,—'to lull

These thoughts of night such storms might shape in thee,

All such to peace and sleep,'—Ah, God! to see

Her like a benediction fleshed! with her

Hearing her voice! her cool hand wandering bare

Wistful on feverish brow thro' long deep curls!

To see her rich throat's carcaneted pearls

Rise as her pulses! eyes' large influence

Poured toward me straight as stars, whose sole defense

Against all storm is their bold beauty! then

To feel her breathe and hear her speak again!

[pg 14]

'Love, mark,' I said or dreamed I moaned in dreams,

'How wails the tumult and the thunder gleams!

As if of Arthur's knights had charged two fields

Bright as sun-winds of dawn; swords, spears and shields

Flashed lordly shocked; had,—to a man gone down

In burst of battle hurled,—lain silent sown.

Love, one eternal tempest thus with thee

Were calm, dead calm! but, no!—for thee in me

Such calm proves tempest. Speak; I feel thy voice

Throb soft, caressing silence, healing noise.'

"Is radiance loved of radiance? day of day?

Lithe beam of beam and laughing ray of ray?

Hope loved of hope and happiness of joy,

Or love of love, who hath the world for toy?

And thou—thou lov'st my voice? fond Accolon!

Why not—yea, why not?—nay!—I prithee!—groan

Not for that thou hast had long since thine all.'

She smiled; and dashed down storm's black-crumbled wall,

Baptizing moonlight bathed her, foot and face

Deluging, as my soul brake toward her grace

With worship from despair and secret grief,

That felt hot tears of heartsease sweet and brief.

And one immortal night to me she said

Words, lay I white in death had raised me red.

'Rest now,' they were, 'I love thee with such love!—

[pg 15]

'Some speak of secret love, but God above

Hath knowledge and divinement.'... Passionate low,

'To lie by thee to-night my mind is':—So

She laughed;—'Sleep well!—for me? why, thy fast word

Of knighthood, look thou, and this naked sword

Laid in betwixt us.... Let it be a wall

Strong between love and lust and lov'st me all in all.'

Undid the goodly gold from her clasped waist;

Unbound deep locks; and, like a blossom faced,

Stood sweet an unswayed stem that ran to bud

In breasts and face a graceful womanhood.

And fragrance was to her as natural

As odor to the rose; and she a tall,

White ardor and white fervor in the room

Moved, some pale presence that with light doth bloom.

Then all mine eyes and lips and limbs were fire;

My tongue delirious throbbed a lawless lyre,

That harped loud words of laud for loveliness,

Inspired of such, but these I can not guess.

Then she, as pure as snows of peaks that keep

Sun-cloven crowns of virgin, vanquishing steep,

Frowned on me, and the thoughts, that in my brain

Had risen a glare of gems, set dull like rain,

And fair I spake her and with civil pain:

"'Thine, sweet, a devil's kindness which is given

For earthly pleasure but bars out from Heaven.

[pg 16]

Temptation harbored, like a bloody rust

On a bright blade, leaves ugly stains; and lust

Is love's undoing when love's limbs are cast

A commonness to desire that makes unchaste;

And this warm nearness of what should be hid

Makes love a lawless love. But, thou hast bid;—

Rest thou; I love thee, how,—I only know:

But all that love shall shout "out!" at love's foe.'

And turning sighed into my hair; and she

Stretched the broad blade's division suddenly.

And so we lay its fire between us twain;

Unsleeping I, for, oh, that devil pain

Of passion in me that strove up and stood

A rebel wrangling with the brain and blood!

An hour stole by: she slept or seemed to sleep.

The winds of night came vigorous from the deep

With storm gusts of fresh-watered field and wold

That breathed of ocean meadows bluely rolled.

I drowsed and time passed; stealing as for one

Whose drowsy life dreams in Avilion.

Vast bulks of black, wind-shattered rack went down

High casement squares of heaven, a crystal crown

Of bubbled moonlight on each monstrous head,

Like as great ghosts of giant kings long dead.

And then, meseemed, she lightly laughed and sighed,

So soft a taper had not bent aside,

[pg 17]

And leaned a soft face seen thro' loosened hair

Above me, whisp'ring as if sweet in prayer,

'Behold, the sword! I take the sword away!'

It curved and clashed where the strewn rushes lay;

Shone glassy, glittering like a watery beam

Of moonlight in the moonlight. I did deem

She moved in sleep and dreamed perverse, nor wist

That which she did until two fierce lips kissed

My wondering eyes to wakement of her thought.

Then spake I, 'Love, my word! is it then naught?

Nay, nay, my word albeit the sword be gone!—

And wouldst thou try me? rest thou safe till dawn!

I will not thus forswear! my word stands fast!'

But now I felt hot, desperate kisses cast

On hair, eyes, throat and lips and over and over,

Low laughter of 'Sweet wretch! and thou—a lover?

What is that word if she thou gavest it

Unbind thee of it? lo, and she sees fit!'

Ah, Morgane, Morgane, then I knew 'twas thou,

Thou! thou! who only could such joy allow."

"And, oh, unburied passion of that night;

The sleepy birds too early piped of light;

Too soon came Light girt with a rosy breeze,

Strong from his bath, to wrestle with the trees,

A thewy hero; and, alas! too soon

[pg 18]

Our scutcheoned oriel stained was overstrewn

Of Dawn's air-jewels; then I sang a strain

Of sleep that in my memory strives again:

"Ethereal limbed the lovely Sleep should sit,

Her starbeam locks with some vague splendor lit,

Like that the glow-worm's emerald radiance sheds

Thro' twilight dew-drops globed on lily-beds.

Her face as fair as if of graven stone,

Yet dim and airy us a cloud alone

In the bare blue of Heaven, smiling sweet,

For languorous thoughts of love that flit and fleet

Short-rainbow-winged about her crumpled hair;

Yet on her brow a pensiveness more fair,

Ungraspable and sad and lost, I wist,

Than thoughts of maiden whom her love hath kissed,

Who knows, thro' deepening eyes and drowsy breath,

Him weeping bent whiles she drifts on to death.

Full sweet and sorrowful and blithe withal

Should be her brow; not wholly spiritual,

But tinged with mortal for the mortal mind,

And smote with flushings from some Eden wind;

Hinting at heart's ease and a god's desire

Of pleasure hastening in a garb of fire

From some dim country over storied seas

Glassed of content and foamed of mysteries.

[pg 19]

Her ears two sea-pearls' morning-tender pink,

And strung to harkening as if on a brink

Night with profundity of death and doubt,

Yet touched with awfulness of light poured out.

Ears strung to palpitations of heart throbs

As sea-shells waver with dim ocean sobs.

One hand, curved like a mist on dusking skies,

Hollowing smooth brows to shade dark velvet eyes,—

Dark-lashed and dewed of tear-drops beautiful,—

To sound the cowering conscience of the dull,

Sleep-sodden features in their human rest,

Ere she dare trust her pureness to that breast.

Large limbs diaphanous and fleeced with veil

Of wimpled heat, wove of the pulsing pale

Of rosy midnight, and stained thro' with stars

In golden cores; clusters of quivering bars

Of nebulous gold, twined round her fleecily.

A lucid shape vague in vague mystery.

Untrammeled bosoms swelling free and white

And prodigal of balm; cupped lilies bright,

That to the famished mind yield their pure, best,

Voluptuous sleep like honey sucked in rest."

Thus they communed. And there her castle stood

With slender towers ivied o'er the wood;

An ancient chapel creeper-buried near;

[pg 20]

A forest vista, where faint herds of deer

Stalked like soft shadows; where the hares did run,

Mavis and throstle caroled in the sun.

For it was Morgane's realm, embowered Gore;

That rooky pile her palace whence she bore

With Urience sway; but he at Camelot

Knew naught of intrigues here at Chariot.

NOON; and the wistful Autumn sat among

The lurid woodlands; chiefs who now were wrung

By crafty ministers, sun, wind and frost,

To don imperial pomp at any cost.

On each wild hill they stood as if for war

Flaunting barbaric raiment wide and far;

And burnt-out lusts in aged faces raged;

Their tottering state by flattering zephyrs paged,

Who in a little fretful while, how soon!

Would work rebellion under some wan moon;

Pluck their old beards deriding; shriek and tear

Rich royalty; sow tattered through the air

Their purple majesty; and from each head

Dash down its golden crown, and in its stead

Set there a pale-death mockery of snow,

Leave them bemoaning beggars bowed with woe.

[pg 21]

Blow, wood-wind, blow! now that all's fresh and fine

As earth and wood can make it; fresh as brine

And rare with sodden scents of underbrush.

Ring, and one hears a cavalcade a-rush;

Bold blare of horns; shrill music of steel bows;—

A horn! a horn! the hunt is up and goes

Beneath the acorn-dropping oaks in green,—

Dark woodland green, a boar-spear held between

His selle and hunter's head, and at his thigh

A good, broad hanger, and one fist on high

To wind the rapid echoes from his horn,

That start the field birds from the sheavéd corn,

Uphurled in vollies of audacious wings,

That cease again when it no longer sings.

Away, away, they flash a belted band

From Camelot thro' that haze-ghostly land;

Hounds leashed and leamers and a flash of steel,

A tramp of horse and the long-baying peal

Of stag hounds whimp'ring and—behold! the hart,

A lordly height, doth from the covert dart;

And the big blood-hounds strain unto the chase.

A-hunt! a-hunt! the pryce seems but a pace

On ere 'tis wound; but now, where interlace

The dense-briered underwoods, the hounds have lost

The slot, there where a forest brook hath crossed

With intercepting waters full of leaves.

[pg 22]

Beyond, the hart a tangled labyrinth weaves

Thro' dimmer boscage, and the wizard sun

Shapes many shadowy stags that seem to run

Wild herds before the baffled foresters.

And treed aloft a reckless laugh one hears,

As if some helping goblin from the trees

Mocked them the unbayed hart and made a breeze

His pursuivant of mocking. Hastening thence

Pursued King Arthur and King Urience

With one small brachet, till scarce hear could they

Their fellowship far-furthered course away

On fresher trace of hind or rugged boar

With haggard, hairy flanks, curled tusks and hoar

With fierce foam-fury; and of these bereft

The kings continued in the slot they'd left.

And there the hart plunged gallant thro' the brake

Leaving a torn path shaking in his wake,

Down which they followed on thro' many a copse

Above whose brush, close on before, the tops

Of the large antlers swelled anon, and so

Were gone where beat the brambles to and fro.

And still they drave him hard; and ever near

Seemed that great hart unwearied; and such cheer

Still stung them to the chase. When Arthur's horse

Gasped mightily and lunging in his course

Lay dead, a lordly bay; and Urience

[pg 23]

Left his gray hunter dying near; and thence

They held the hunt afoot; when suddenly

Were they aware of a wide, roughened sea,

And near the wood the hart upon the sward

Bayed, panting unto death and winded hard.

Right so the king dispatched him and the pryce

Wound on his hunting bugle clearly thrice.

As if each echo, which that wild horn's blast

Waked from its sleep,—the quietude had cast

Tender as mercy on it,—in a band

Rose moving sounds of gladness hand in hand,

Came twelve fair damsels, sunny in sovereign white,

From that red woodland gliding. These each knight

Graced with obeisance and "Our lord," said one,

"Tenders ye courtesy until the dawn;

The Earl Sir Damas; well in his wide keep,

Seen thither with due worship, ye shall sleep."

And then they came o'erwearied to a hall,

An owlet-haunted pile, whose weedy wall

Towered based on crags rough, windy turrets high;

An old, gaunt giant-castle 'gainst a sky

Wherein the moon hung foam-faced, large and full.

Down on dank sea-foundations broke the dull,

Weird monotone of ocean, and wide rolled

The watery wilderness that was as old

[pg 24]

As loud, defying headlands stretching out

Beneath still stars with a voluminous shout

Of wreck and wrath forever. Here the two

Were feasted fairly and with worship due

All errant knights, and then a damsel led

Each knight with flaring lamp unto his bed

Down separate corridores of that great keep;

And soon they rested in a heavy sleep.

And then King Arthur woke, and woke mid groans

Of dolorous knights; and 'round him lay the bones

Of many woful champions mouldering;

And he could hear the open ocean ring

Wild wasted waves above. And so he thought

"It is some nightmare weighing me, distraught

By that long hunt;" and then he sought to shake

The horror off and to himself awake;

But still he heard sad groans and whispering sighs,

And deep in iron-ribbéd cells the eyes

Of pale, cadaverous knights shone fixed on him

Unhappy; and he felt his senses swim

With foulness of that cell, and, "What are ye?

Ghosts of chained champions or a company

Of phantoms, bodiless fiends? If speak ye can,

Speak, in God's name! for I am here—a man!"

Then groaned the shaggy throat of one who lay

[pg 25]

A dusky nightmare dying day by day,

Yet once of comely mien and strong withal

And greatly gracious; but, now hunger-tall,

With scrawny beard and faded hands and cheeks:

"Sir knight," said he, "know that the wretch who speaks

Is but an one of twenty knights here shamed

Of him who lords this castle, Damas named,

Who mews us here for slow starvation keen;

Around you fade the bones of some eighteen

Tried knights of Britain; and God grant that soon

My hunger-lengthened ghost will see the moon,

Beyond the vileness of this prisonment!"

With that he sighed and round the dungeon went

A rustling sigh, like saddened sin, and so

Another dim, thin voice complained their woe:—

"He doth enchain us with this common end,

That he find one who will his prowess bend

To the attainment of his livelihood.

A younger brother, Ontzlake, hath he; good

And courteous, withal most noble, whom

This Damas hates—yea, ever seeks his doom;

Denying him to their estate all right

Save that he holds by main of arms and might.

And thro' puissance hath he some fat fields

And one rich manor sumptuous, where he yields

[pg 26]

Belated knights host's hospitality.

Then bold is Ontzlake, Damas cowardly.

For Ontzlake would decide by sword and lance

Body for body this inheritance;

But Damas dotes on life so courageless;

Thus on all knights perforce lays coward's stress

To fight for him or starve. For ye must know

That in his country he is hated so

That no helm here is who will take the fight;

Thus fortunes it our plight is such a plight."

Quoth he and ceased. And wondering at the tale

The King was thoughtful, and each faded, pale,

Poor countenance still conned him when he spake:

"And what reward if one this battle take?"

"Deliverance for all if of us one

Consent to be his party's champion.

But treachery and he are so close kin

We loathe the part as some misshapen sin,

And here would rather dally on to death

Than serving falseness save and slave our breath."

"May God deliver you for mercy, sirs!"

And right anon an iron noise he hears

Of chains clanked loose and bars jarred rusty back,

The heavy gate croak open; and the black

Of that rank cell astonished was with light,

[pg 27]

That danced fantastic with the frantic night.

One high torch sidewise worried by the gust

Sunned that lorn den of hunger, death and rust,

And one tall damsel vaguely vestured, fair

With shadowy hair, poised on the rocky stair.

And laughing on the King, "What cheer?" said she;

"God's life! the keep stinks vilely! and to see

So noble knights endungeoned hollowing here

Doth pain me sore with pity—but, what cheer?"

"Thou mockest us; for me the sorriest

Since I was suckled; and of any quest

To me the most imperiling and strange.—

But what wouldst thou?" said Arthur. She, "A change

I offer thee, through thee to these with thee,

And thou but grant me in love's courtesy

To fight for Damas and his livelihood.

And if thou wilt not—look! thou seest this brood

Of lean and dwindled bellies specter-eyed,

Keen knights erst who refused me?—so decide."

Then thought the King of the sweet sky, the breeze

That blew delirious over waves and trees;

Thick fields of grasses and the sunny earth

Whose beating heat filled the red heart with mirth,

And made the world one sovereign pleasure house

Where king and serf might revel and carouse;

[pg 28]

Then of the hunt on autumn-plaintive hills;

Lone forest chapels by their radiant rills:

His palace rich at Caerlleon upon Usk,

And Camelot's loud halls that thro' the dusk

Blazed far and bloomed a rose of revelry;

Or in the misty morning shadowy

Loomed grave for audience. And then he thought

Of his Round Table and that Grael wide sought

In haunted holds on demon-sinful shore;

Then marveled of what wars would rise and roar

With dragon heads unconquered and devour

This realm of Britain and pluck up that flower

Of chivalry whence ripened his renown:

And then the reign of some besotted crown,

A bandit king of lust, idolatry—

And with that thought for tears he could not see:

Then of his greatest champions, King Ban's son,

And Galahad and Tristram, Accolon:

And then, ah God! of his dear Guenevere,

And with that thought—to starve and moulder here?—

For, being unfriend to Arthur and his court,

Well wist he this grim Earl would bless that sport

Of fortune which had fortuned him so well

To have to starve his sovereign in a cell.—

In the entombing rock where ground the deep;

And all the life shut in his limbs did leap

[pg 29]

Thro' eager veins and sinews fierce and red,

Stung on to action, and he rose and said:

"That which thou askest is right hard, but, lo!

To rot here harder; I will fight his foe.

But, mark, I have no weapons and no mail,

No steed against that other to avail."

"Fear not for that; and thou shalt lack none, sire."

And so she led the path: her torch's fire

Scaring wild spidery shadows at each stride

From cob-webbed coignes of scowling passes wide,

That labyrinthed the rock foundation strong

Of that ungainly fortress bleak of wrong.

At length they came to a nail-studded door,

Which she unlocked with one harsh key she bore

Mid many keys bunched at her girdle; thence

They issued on a terraced eminence.

Beneath the sea broke sounding; and the King

Breathed open air that had the smell and sting

Of brine morn-vigored and blue-billowed foam;

For in the East the second dawning's gloam,

Since that unlucky chase, was freaked with streaks

Red as the ripe stripes of an apple's cheeks.

And so within that larger light of dawn

It seemed to Arthur now that he had known

This maiden at his court, and so he asked.

[pg 30]

But she, well-tutored, her real person masked,

And answered falsely; "Nay, deceive thee not;

Thou saw'st me ne'er at Arthur's court, I wot.

For here it likes me best to sing and spin

And work the hangings my sire's halls within:

No courts or tournaments or gallants brave

To flatter me and love! for me—the wave,

The forest, field and sky; the calm, the storm;

My garth wherein I walk to think; the charm

Of uplands redolent at bounteous noon

And full of sunlight; night's free stars and moon;

White ships that pass some several every year;

These lonesome towers and those wild mews to hear."

"An owlet maid!" the King laughed. But, untrue

Was she, and of false Morgane's treasonous crew,

Who worked vile wiles ev'n to the slaying of

The King, half-brother, whom she did not love.

And presently she brought him where in state

This swarthy Damas with mailed cowards sate....

King Urience that dawning woke and found

Himself safe couched at Camelot and wound

In Morgane's arms; nor weened he how it was

That this thing secretly had come to pass.

But Accolon at Chariot sojourned still

Content with his own dreams; for 'twas the will

[pg 31]

Of Morgane thus to keep him hidden here

For her desire's excess, where everywhere

In Gore by wood and river pleasure houses,

Pavilions, rose of rock for love carouses;

And there in one, where 'twas her dearest wont

To list a tinkling, falling water fount,—

Which thro' sweet talks of idle paramours

At sensuous ease on tumbled beds of flowers,

Had caught a laughing language light thereof,

And rambled ever gently whispering, "love!"—

On cool white walls her hands had deftly draped

A dark rich hanging, where were worked and shaped

Her fullest hours of pleasure flesh and mind,

Imperishable passions, which could wind

The past and present quickly; and could mate

Dead loves to kisses, and intoxicate

With moon-soft words of past delight and song

The heavy heart that wronged forgot the wrong.

And there beside it pooled the urnéd well,

And slipping thence thro' dripping shadows fell

From rippling rock to rock. Here Accolon,

With Morgane's hollow lute, one studious dawn

Came solely; with not ev'n her brindled hound

To leap beside him o'er the gleaming ground;

No handmaid lovely of his loveliest fair,

Or paging dwarf in purple with him there;

[pg 32]

But this her lute, about which her perfume

Clung odorous of memories, that made bloom

Her flowing features rosy to his eyes,

That saw the words, his sense could but surmise,

Shaped on dim, breathing lips; the laugh that drunk

Her deep soul-fire from eyes wherein it sunk

And slowly waned away to smouldering dreams,

Fathomless with thought, far in their dove-gray gleams.

And so for those most serious eyes and lips,

Faint, filmy features, all the music slips

Of buoyant being bubbling to his voice

To chant her praises; and with nervous poise

His fleet, trained fingers call from her long lute

Such riotous notes as must make madly mute

The nightingale that listens quivering.

And well he knows that winging hence it'll sing

These aching notes, whose beauties burn and pain

Its anguished heart now sobless, not in vain

Wild 'neath her casement in that garden old

Dingled with heavy roses; in the gold

Of Camelot's stars and pearl-encrusted moon;

And if it dies, the heartache of the tune

Shall clamor stormy passion at her ear,

Of death more dear than life if love be there;

Melt her quick eyes to tears, her throat to sobs

Tumultuous heaved, while separation throbs

[pg 33]

Hard at her heart, and longing rears to Death

Two prayerful eyes of pleading "for one breath—

An ardor of fierce life—crushed in his arms

Close, close! and, oh, for such, all these smooth charms,

Full, sentient charms voluptuous evermore!"

And sweet to know these sensitive vows shall soar

Ev'n to the dull ear of her drowsy lord

Beside her; heart-defying with each word

Harped in the bird's voice rhythmically clear.

And thus he sang to her who was not there:

Babbled the woodland like a rocky brook;

And as the ecstacy of foliage shook,

Hot pieces of bright, sunny heavens glanced

Like polished silver thro' pale leaves that danced.

As one hath seen some green-gowned huntress fair,

Morn in her cheeks and midnight in her hair,

Eyes clear as hollow dews; clean limbs as lithe

As limbs swift morning moves; a voice as blithe

As high hawk's ringing thro' the falling dews;

Pant thro' the bramble-matted avenues,—

Where brier and thorn have gashed her gown's pinched green,

About bright breasts and arms, the milky sheen

Of white skin healthy pouting out; her face,

Ardent and flushed, fixed on the lordly chase.

THE eve now came; and shadows cowled the way

Like somber palmers, who have kneeled to pray

Beside a wayside shrine, and rosy rolled

Up the capacious West a grainy gold,

Luxuriant fluid, burned thro' strong, keen skies,

Which seemed as towering gates of Paradise

Surged dim, far glories on the hungry gaze.

And from that sunset down the roseate ways,

To Accolon, who with his idle lute,

Reclined in revery against a root

Of a great oak, a fragment of that West,

A dwarf, in crimson satin tightly dressed,

Skipped like a leaf the rather frosts have burned

And cozened to a fever red, that turned

And withered all its sap. And this one came

From Camelot; from his beloved dame,

Morgane the Fay. He on his shoulder bore

A burning blade wrought strange with wizard lore,

Runed mystically; and a scabbard which

Glared venomous, with angry jewels rich.

He, louting to the knight, "Sir knight," said he,

"Your lady with all sweetest courtesy

Assures you—ah, unworthy messenger

[pg 37]

I of such brightness!—of that love of her."

Then doffing that great baldric, with the sword

To him he gave: "And this from him, my lord

King Arthur; even his Excalibur,

The sovereign blade, which Merlin gat of her,

The Ladye of the Lake, who Launcelot

Fostered from infanthood, as well you wot,

In some wierd mere in Briogn's tangled lands

Of charms and mist; where filmy fairy bands

By lazy moons of Autumn spin their fill

Of giddy morrice on the frosty hill.

By goodness of her favor this is sent;

Who craved King Arthur boon with this intent:

That soon for her a desperate combat one

With one of mightier prowess were begun;

And with the sword Excalibur right sure

Were she against that champion to endure.

The blade flame-trenchant, but more prize the sheath

Which stauncheth blood and guardeth from all death."

He said: and Accolon looked on the sword,

A mystic falchion, and, "It shall wend hard

With him thro' thee, unconquerable blade,

Whoe'er he be, who on my Queen hath laid

Stress of unworship: and the hours as slow

As palsied hours in Purgatory go

For those unmassed, till I have slain this foe!

[pg 38]

My purse, sweet page; and now—to her who gave,

Dispatch! and this:—to all commands—her slave,

To death obedient. In love or war

Her love to make me all the warrior.

Plead her grace mercy for so long delay

From love that dies an hourly death each day

Till her white hands kissed he shall kiss her face,

By which his life breathes in continual grace."

Thus he commanded; and incontinent

The dwarf departed like a red ray sent

From rich down-flowering clouds of suffused light

Winged o'er long, purple glooms; and with the night,

Whose votaress cypress stoled the dying strife

Softly of day, and for whose perished life

Gave heaven her golden stars, in dreamy thought

Wends Accolon to hazy Chariot.

And it befell him; wandering one dawn,

As was his wont, across a dew-drenched lawn,

Glad with night freshness and elastic health

In sky and earth that lavished worlds of wealth

From heady breeze and racy smells, a knight

And lofty lady met he; gay bedight,

With following of six esquires; and they

Held on straight wrists the jess'd gerfalcon gray,

And rode a-hawking o'er the leas of Gore

[pg 39]

From Ontzlake's manor, where he languished; sore

Hurt in the lists, a spear thrust in his thigh:

Who had besought—for much he feared to die—

This knight and his fair lady, as they rode

To hawk near Chariot, the Queen's abode,

That they would pray her in all charity

Fare post to him,—for in chirurgery

Of all that land she was the greatest leach,—

And her to his recovery beseech.

So, Accolon saluted, they drew rein,

And spake their message,—for right over fain

Were they toward their sport,—that he might bare

Petition to that lady. But, not there

Was Arthur's sister, as they well must wot;

But now a se'nnight lay at Camelot,

Of Guenevere the guest; and there with her

Four other queens of farther Britain were:

Isoud of Ireland, she of Cornwall Queen,

King Mark's wife; who right rarely then was seen

At court for jealousy of Mark, who knew

Her to that lance of Lyonesse how true

Since mutual quaffing of a philter; while

How guilty Guenevere on such could smile:

She of Northgales and she of Eastland: and

She of the Out Isles Queen. A fairer band

For sovereignty and love and loveliness

[pg 40]

Was not in any realm to grace and bless.

Then quoth the knight, "Ay? see how fortune turns

And varies like an April day, that burns

Now welkins blue with calm, now scowls them down,

Revengeful, with a black storm's wrinkled frown.

For, look, this Damas, who so long hath lain

A hiding vermin, fearful of all pain,

Dark in his bandit towers by the deep,

Wakes from a five years' torpor and a sleep;

So sends dispatch a courier to my lord

With, 'Lo! behold! to-morrow with the sword

Earl Damas by his knight at point of lance

Decides the issue of inheritance,

Body to body, or by champion.'

Right hard to find such ere to-morrow dawn.

Though sore bestead lies Ontzlake, and he could,

Right fain were he to save his livelihood.

Then mused Sir Accolon: "The adventure goes

Ev'n as my Lady fashioneth; who knows

But what her arts develop this and make?"

And thus to those: "His battle I will take,—

And he be so conditioned, harried of

Estate and life,—in knighthood and for love.

Conduct me thither."

And, gramercied, then

Mounted a void horse of that wondering train,

[pg 41]

And thence departed with two squires. And they

Came to a lone, dismantled priory

Hard by a castle gray on whose square towers,

Machicolated, o'er the forest's bowers,

The immemorial morning bloomed and blushed.

A woodland manor olden, dark embushed

In wild and woody hills. And then one wound

An echoy horn, and with the boundless sound

The drawbridge rumbled moatward clanking, and

Into a paved court passed that little band....

When all the world was morning, gleam and glare

Of far deluging glory, and the air

Sang with the wood-bird, like a humming lyre

Swept bold of minstrel fingers wire on wire;

Ere that fixed hour of prime came Arthur armed

For battle royally. A black steed warmed

A fierce impatience 'neath him cased in mail,

Huge, foreign; and accoutered head to tail

In costly sendal; rearward wine-dark red,

Amber as sunlight to his fretful head.

Firm, heavy armor blue had Arthur on

Beneath a robe of honor, like the dawn,

Satin and diapered and purflewed deep

With lordly golden purple; whence did sweep

Two hanging acorn tuftings of fine gold,

[pg 42]

And at his thigh a falchion, long and bold,

Heavy and triple-edged; its scabbard, red

Cordovan leather; thence a baldric led

Of new cut deer-skin; this laborious wrought,

And curiously with slides of gold was fraught,

And buckled with a buckle white that shone,

Bone of the sea-horse, tongued with jet-black bone.

And, sapphire-set, a burgonet of gold

Barbaric, wyvern-crested whose throat rolled

A flame-sharp tongue of agate, and whose eyes

Glowed venomous great rubies fierce of prize.

And in his hand, a wiry lance of ash,

Lattened with finest silver, like a flash

Of sunlight in the morning shone a-gash.

Clad was his squire most richly; he whose head

Curled with close locks of yellow tinged to red:

Of noble bearing; fair face; hawk eyes keen,

And youthful, bearded chin. Right well beseen,

Scarfed with blue satin; on his shoulder strong

One broad gold brooch chased strangely, thick and long.

His legs in hose of rarest Totness clad,

And parti-colored leathern shoes he had

Gold-latched; and in his hand a bannered spear

Speckled and bronzen sharpened in the air.

So with his following, while lay like scars

The blue mist thin along the woodland bars,

[pg 43]

Thro' dew and fog, thro' shadow and thro' ray

Joustward Earl Damas led the forest way.

Then to King Arthur when arrived were these

To where the lists shone silken thro' the trees,

Bannered and draped, a wimpled damsel came,

Secret, upon a palfrey all aflame

With sweat and heat of hurry, and, "From her,

Your sister Morgane, your Excalibur,

With tender greeting: For ye well have need

In this adventure of him. So, God speed!"

And so departed suddenly: nor knew

The king but this his weapon tried and true.

But brittle this and fashioned like thereof,

And false of baser metal, in unlove

And treason to his life, of her of kin

Half sister, Morgane—an unnatural sin.

Then heralded into the lists he rode.

Opposed flashed Accolon, who light bestrode,

Exultant, proud in talisman of that sword,

A dun horse lofty as a haughty lord,

Pure white about each hollow, pasterned hoof.

Equipped shone knight and steed in arms of proof,

Dappled with yellow variegated plate

Of Spanish laton. And of sovereign state

His surcoat robe of honor white and black

[pg 44]

Of satin, red-silk needled front and back

Then blackly bordered. And above his robe

That two-edged sword,—a throbbing golden globe

Of vicious jewels,—thrust its burning hilt,

Its broad belt, tawny and with gold-work gilt,

Clasped with the eyelid of a black sea-horse

Whose tongue was rosy gold. And stern as Force

His visored helmet burned like fire, of rich

And bronzen laton hammered; and on which

An hundred crystals glittered, thick as on

A silver web bright-studding dews of dawn.

The casque's tail crest a taloned griffin ramped,

In whose horned brow one virtuous jewel stamped.

An ashen spear round-shafted, overlaid

With fine blue silver, whereon colors played,

Firm in his iron gauntlet lithely swayed.

Intense on either side an instant stood

Glittering as serpents which, with Spring renewed,

In glassy scales meet on some greening way,

Angry advance, quick tongues at poisonous play.

Then clanged a herald's clarion and sharp heels,

Harsh-spurred, each champion's springing courser feels

Touch to red onset; the aventured spears

Hurled like two sun-bursts of a storm when clears

Laborious thunders; and in middle course

[pg 45]

Shrieked shrill the unpierced shields; mailed horse from horse

Lashed madly pawing—and a hoarse roar rang

From buckram lists, till the wild echoes sang

Of leagues on leagues of forest and of cliff.

Rigid the proof-shelled warriors passed and stiff

Whither their squires fresher spears upheld;

Nor stayed to breathe; but scarcely firmly selled

Launched deadly forward. Shield to savage shield

Opposing; crest to crest, whose fronts did wield

A towering war's unmercifulest scath;

Rocking undaunted, glared wan withering wrath

From balls of jeweled eyes, and raging stood

Slim, slippery bodies, in the sun like blood.

The lance of Accolon, as on a rock

Long storm-launched foam breaks baffled, with the shock,

On Arthur's sounding shield burst splintered force;

But him resistless Arthur's,—high from horse

Sell-lifted,—ruinous bare crashing on

A long sword's length; unsaddled Accolon

For one stunned moment lay. Then rising, drew

The great sword at his hip, that shone like dew

Fresh flashed in morn. "Descend;" he stiffly said,

"To proof of better weapons head for head!

Enough of spears, to swords!" and so the knight

Addressed him to the King. Dismounting light,

Arthur his moon-bright brand unsheathed, and high

[pg 46]

Each covering shield gleamed slanting to the sky,

Relentless, strong, and stubborn; underneath

Their wary shelters foined the glittering death

Of stolid steel thrust livid arm to arm:

As cloud to cloud growls up a soaring storm

Above the bleak wood and lithe lightnings work

Brave blades wild warring, in the black that lurk,

Thus fenced and thrust—one tortoise shield descends,

Leaps a fierce sword shrill,—like a flame which sends

A long fang heavenward,—for a crushing stroke;

Swings hard and trenchant, and, resounding heard,

Sings surly helmward full; defiance reared

Soars to a brother blow to shriek again

Blade on brave blade. And o'er the battered plain,

Forward and backward, blade on baleful blade,

Teeth clenched as visors where the fierce eyes made

A cavernous, smouldering fury, shield at shield,

Unflinchingly remained and scorned to yield.

So Arthur drew aside to rest upon

His falchion for a pause; but Accolon

As yet, thro' virtue of that magic sheath

Fresh and almighty, being no nearer death

Thro' loss of blood than when the trial begun,

Chafed with delay. But Arthur with the sun,

Its thirsty heat, the loss from wounds of blood,

[pg 47]

Leaned fainting weary and so resting stood.

Cried Accolon, "Here is no time for rest!

Defend thee!" and straight on the monarch pressed;

"Defend or yield thee as one recreant!"

Full on his helm a hewing blow did plant,

Which beat a flying fire from the steel;

Smote, like one drunk with wine, the King did reel,

Breath, brain bewildered. Then, infuriate,

Nerve-stung with vigor by that blow, in hate

Gnarled all his strength into one stroke of might,

And in both fists the huge blade knotted tight,

Swung red, terrific to a sundering stroke.—

As some bright wind that hurls th' uprooted oak,—

Boomed full the beaten burgonet he wore:

Hacked thro' and thro' the crest, and cleanly shore

The golden boasting of its griffin fierce

With hollow clamor down astounded ears:

No further thence—but, shattered to the grass,

That brittle blade, crushed as if made of glass,

Into hot pieces like a broken ray

Burst sunward and in feverish fragments lay.

Then groaned the King unarmed; and so he knew

This no Excalibur; that tried and true

Most perfect tempered, runed and mystical.

Sobbed, "Oh, hell-false! betray me?"— Then withal

Him seemed this foe, who fought with so much stress,

[pg 48]

So long untiring, and with no distress

Of wounds or heat, through treachery bare his brand;

And then he knew it by its hilt that hand

Clutched to an avenging stroke. For Accolon

In madness urged the belted battle on

His King defenseless; who, the hilted cross

Of that false weapon grasped, beneath the boss

Of his deep-dented shield crouched; and around

Crawled the unequal conflict o'er the ground,

Sharded with shattered spears and off-hewn bits

Of shivered steel and gold that burnt in fits.

So hunted, yet defiant, cowering

Beneath his bossy shield's defense, the King

Persisted stoutly. And, devising still

How to secure his sword and by what skill,

Him so it fortuned when most desperate:

In that hot chase they came where shattered late

Lay tossed the truncheon of a bursten lance,

Which deftly seized, to Accolon's advance

He wielded valorous. Against the fist

Smote where the gauntlet husked the nervous wrist,

Which strained the weapon to a wrathful blow;

Palsied, the tightened sinews of his foe

Loosened from effort, and, the falchion seized,

Easy was yielded. Then the wroth King squeezed,

—Hurling the moon-disk of his shield afar,—

[pg 49]

Him in both knotted arms of wiry war,

Rocked sidewise twice or thrice,—as one hath seen

Some stern storm take an ash tree, roaring green,

Nodding its sappy bulk of trunk and boughs

To dizziness, from tough, coiled roots carouse

Its long height thundering;—so King Arthur shook

Sir Accolon and headlong flung; then took,

Tearing away, that scabbard from his side,

Tossed thro' the breathless lists, that far and wide

Gulped in the battle voiceless. Then right wroth

Secured Excalibur, and grasped of both

Wild hands swung glittering and brought bitter down

On rising Accolon; steel, bone and brawn

Hewed thro' that blow; unsettled every sense:

Bathed in a world of blood his limbs grew tense

And writhen then ungathered limp with death.

Bent to him Arthur, from the brow beneath,

Unlaced the helm and doffed it and so asked,

When the fair forehead's hair curled dark uncasqued,

"Say! ere I slay thee, whence and what thou art?

What King, what court be thine? and from what part,

Speak! or thou diest!—Yet, that brow, methinks

I have beheld it—where? say, ere death drinks

The soul-light from life's cups, thine eyes! thou art—

What art thou, speak!"

He answered slow and short

[pg 50]

With tortured breathing: "I?—one, Accolon

Of Gaul, a knight of Arthur's court—at dawn—

God wot what now I am for love so slain!"

Then seemed the victor spasmed with keen pain,

Covered with mailéd hands his visored face;

"Thou Accolon? art Accolon?" a space

Exclaimed and conned him: then asked softly, "Say,

Whence gatest thou this sword, or in what way

Thou hadst it, speak?" But wandering that knight

Heard dully, senses clodded thick with night;

Then rallying earthward: "Woe, woe worth the sword!

—From love of love who lives, for love yet lord!—

Morgane!—thy love for love in love hadst made

Me strong o'er kings an hundred! to have swayed

Britain! had this not risen like a fate,

Spawned up, a Hell's miscarriage sired of Hate!—

A king? thou curse! a gold and blood crowned king,

With Arthur's sister queen?—'Twas she who schemed.

And there at Chariot we loved and dreamed

Gone some twelve months. There so we had devolved

How Arthur's death were compassed and resolved

Each liberal morning, like an almoner,

Prodigal of silver to the begging air;

Each turbulent eve that in heaven's turquoise rolled

Convulsive fiery glories deep in gold;

Each night—hilarious heavens vast of night!—

[pg 51]

Boisterous with quivering stars buoyed bubble-light

In flexuous labyrinths o' the intricate sphere.

We dreamed and spake Ambition at our ear—

Nay! a crowned curse and crimeful clad she came,

To me, that woman, brighter than a flame;

And laughed on me with pouting lips up-pursed

For kisses which I gave for love: How cursed

Was I thereafter! For, lie fleshed in truth,

She shrivels to a hag! Behind that youth

Ugly, misshapen; Lust not Love, wherein

Germs pregnant seed of Hell for hate and sin.—

I seek for such the proudest height of seat,

King Arthur's kingdom, and bold fame complete?—

Harlot!—sweet spouse of Urience King of Gore!—

Sweet harlot!—here's that death determined o'er!

And now thou hast thy dream, and dreaming grieve

That death so ruins it?—Thy mouth to shrieve!—

Nay, nay, I love thee! witness bare this field!

I love thee!—heart, dost love her and yet yield?—

Enow! enow! so hale me hence to die!"

Then anger in the good King's gloomy eye

Burnt, instant-embered, as one oft may see

A star leak out of heaven and cease to be.

Slow from his visage he his visor raised,

And on the dying one mute moment gazed,

[pg 52]

Then low bespake him grimly: "Accolon,

I am that King." He with an awful groan,

Blade-battered as he was, beheld and knew;

Strained to his tottering knees and haggard drew

Up full his armored tallness, hoarsely cried,

"The King!" and at his mailed feet clashed and died.

Then rose a world of anxious faces pressed

About King Arthur, who, though wound-distressed,

Bespake that multitude: "Whiles breath and power

Remain, judge we these brethren: This harsh hour

Hath yielded Damas all this rich estate;—

So it is his—allotted his of Fate

Thro' might of arms; so let it be to him.

For, stood our oath on knighthood not so slim

But that it hath this strong conclusion:

This much by us as errant knight is done:

Now our decree as King of Britain, hear:

We do adjudge this Damas banned fore'er,

Outlawed and exiled from all shores and isles

Of farthest Britain in its many miles.

One month be his—no more! then will we come

Even with an iron host to seal his doom;

If he be not departed over seas,

Hang naked from his battlements to please

Of carrion ravens and wild hawks the craws.

Thus much for Damas. But our pleasure draws

[pg 53]

Toward sir Ontzlake, whom it likes the King

To take into his knightly following

Of that Round Table royal.—Stand our word!—

But I am overweary; take my sword;—

Unharness me; for, battle worn, I tire

With bruises' achings and wounds mad with fire;

And monasteryward would I right fain,

Even Glastonbury and with me the slain."

So bare they then the wounded King away,

The dead behind. So, closed the Autumn day.

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

But when within that abbey he waxed strong,

The King remembering him of all the wrong

That Damas had inflicted on the land,

Commanded Lionell with a staunch band

This weed's out-stamping if still rooted there.

He riding thither to that robber lair,

Led Arthur's hopefulest helms, when thorn on thorn

Reddened an hundred spears one winter morn;

Built up, a bulk of bastioned rock on rock,

Vast battlements, that loomed above the shock

Of freshening foam that climbed with haling hands,

Lone cloudy-clustered turrets in loud lands

Set desolate,—mournful o'er wide, frozen flats,—

Found hollow towers the haunt of owls and bats.

HATE, born of Wrath and mother red of Crime,

In Hell was whelped ere the hot hands of time,

Artificer of God, had coined one world

From formless forms of void and 'round it furled

Its lordly raiment of the day and night,

And germed its womb for seasons throed with might:

And Hell sent Hate to man to hate or use,

To serve itself by serving and amuse....

For her half brother Morgane had conceived

A morbid hatred; in that much she grieved,

Envious and jealous, for that high renown

And majesty the King for his fast crown

Thro' worship had acquired. And once he said,

"The closest kin to state are those to dread:

No honor such to crush: envenoming

All those kind tongues of blood that try to sing

Petition to the soul, while conscience quakes

Huddled, but stern to hearts whose cold pride takes."

And well she knew that Arthur: mightier

Than Accolon, without Excalibur

Were as a stingless hornet in the joust

With all his foreign weapons. So her trust

Smiled certain of conclusion; eloquent

[pg 55]

Gave lofty heart bold hope that at large eyes

Piled up imperial dreams of power and prize.

And in her carven chamber, oaken dark,

Traceried and arrased, o'er the barren park

That dripped with Autumn,—for November lay

Swathed frostily in fog on every spray,—

Thought at her tri-arched casement lone, one night,

Ere yet came knowledge of that test of might.

Her lord in slumber and the castle dull

With silence or with sad wind-music full.

"And he removed?—fond fool! he is removed!

Death-dull from feet to hair and graveward shoved

From royalty to that degraded state

But purpler pomp! But, see! regenerate

Another monarch rises—Accolon!—

Love! Love! with state more ermined; balmy son

Of gods not men, and nobler hence to rule.

Sweet Love almighty, terrible to school

Harsh hearts to gentleness!—Then all this realm's

Iron-huskéd flower of war, which overwhelms

With rust and havoc, shall explode and bloom

An asphodel of peace with joy's perfume.

And then, sweet Launcelots and sweet Tristrams proud,

Sweet Gueneveres, sweet Isouds, now allowed

No pleasures but what wary, stolen hours

In golden places have their flaming flowers,

[pg 56]

Shall have curled feasts of passion evermore.

Poor out-thrust Love, now shivering at the door,

No longer, sweet neglected, thou thrust off,

Insulted and derided: nor the scoff

Of bully Power, whose heart of insult flings

Off for the roar of arms the appeal that clings

And lifts a tearful, prayerful pitiful face

Up from his brutal feet: this shrine where grace

Lays woman's life for every sacrifice—

To him so little, yet of what pure price,

Her all, being all her all for love!—her soul

Life, honor, earth and firmamental whole

Of God's glad universe; stars, moon and sun;

Creation, death; life ended, life begun.

And if by fleshly love all Heaven's debarred,

Its sinuous revolving spheres instarred,

Then Hell were Heaven with love to those who knew

Love which God's Heaven encouraged—love that drew

Hips, head and hair in fiends' devouring claws

Down, down its pit's hurled sucking, as down draws,—

Yet lip to narrow lip with whom we love,—

A whirlwind some weak, crippled, fallen dove.

"Then this lank Urience? He who is lord.—

Where is thy worry? for, hath he no sword?

No dangerous dagger I, hid softly here

[pg 57]

Sharp as an adder's fang? or for that ear

No instant poison which insinuates,

Tightens quick pulses, while one breathing waits,

With ice and death? For often men who sleep

On eider-down wake not, but closely keep

Such secrets in their graves to rot and rot

To dust and maggots;—of these—which his lot?"

Thus she conspired with her that rainy night

Lone in her chamber; when no haggard, white,

Wan, watery moon dreamed on the streaming pane,

But on the leads beat an incessant rain,

And sighed and moaned a weary wind along

The turrets and torn poplars stirred to song.

So grew her face severe as skies that take

Dark forces of full storm, sound-shod, that shake

With murmurous feet black hills, and stab with fire

A pine some moaning forest mourns as sire.

So touched her countenance that dark intent;

And to still eyes stern thoughts a passion sent,

As midnight waters luminous glass deep

Suggestive worlds of austere stars in sleep,

Vague ghostly gray locked in their hollow gloom.

Then as if some vast wind had swept the room,

Silent, intense, had raised her from her seat,

Of dim, great arms had made her a retreat,

[pg 58]

Secret as love to move in, like some ghost,

Noiseless as death and subtle as sharp frost,

Poised like a light and borne as carefully,

Trod she the gusty hall where shadowy

The stirring hangings rolled a Pagan war.

And there the mail of Urience shone. A star,

Glimmering above, a dying cresset dropped

From the stone vault and flared. And here she stopped

And took the sword bright, burnished by his page,

And ruddy as a flame with restless rage.

Grasping this death unto the chamber where

Slept innocent her spouse she moved—an air

Twined in soft, glossy sendal; or a fit

Of faery song a wicked charm in it,

A spell that sings seductive on to death.

Then paused she at one chamber; for a breath

Listened: and here her son Sir Ewain slept,

He who of ravens a black army kept,

In war than fiercest men more terrible,

That tore forth eyes of kings who blinded fell.

Sure that he slept, to Urience stole and stood

Dim by his couch. About her heart hot blood

Caught strangling, then throbbed thudding fever up

To her broad eyes, like wine whirled in a cup.

Then came rare Recollection, with a mouth

Sweet as the honeyed sunbeams of the South

[pg 59]

Trickling thro' perplexed ripples of low leaves;

To whose faint form a veil of starshine cleaves

Intricate gauze from memoried eyes to feet;—

Feet sandaled with crushed, sifted snows and fleet

To come and go and airy anxiously.

She, trembling to her, like a flower a bee

Nests in and makes an audible mouth of musk

Dripping a downy language in the dusk,

Laid lips to ears and luted memories of

Now hateful Urience:—Her maiden love,

That willing went from Caerlleon to Gore

One dazzling day of Autumn. How a boar,

Wild as the wonder of the blazing wood,

Raged at her from a cavernous solitude,

Which, crimson-creepered, yawned the bristling curse

Murderous upon her; how her steed waxed worse

And, snorting terror, fled unmanageable,

Pursued with fear, and flung her from the selle,

Soft slipping on a bank of springy moss

That couched her swooning. In an utter loss

Of mind and limbs she only knew twas thus—

As one who pants beneath an incubus:—

The boar thrust toward her a tusked snout and fanged

Of hideous bristles, and the whole wood clanged

And buzzed and boomed a thousand sounds and lights

Lawless about her brain, like leaves fierce nights

[pg 60]

Of hurricane harvest shouting: then she knew

A fury thunder twixt it—and fleet flew

Rich-rooted moss and sandy loam that held

Dark-buried shadows of the wild, and swelled

Continual echoes with the thud of strife,

And breath of man and brute that warred for life;

And all the air, made mad with foam and forms,

Spun froth and wrestled twixt her hair and arms,

While trampled caked the stricken leaves or shred

Hummed whirling, and snapped brittle branches dead.

And when she rose and leaned her throbbing head,

Which burst its uncoifed rays of raven hair

Down swelling shoulders pure and faultless fair,

On one milk, marvelous arm of fluid grace,

Beheld the brute thing throttled and the face

Of angry Urience over, browed like Might,

One red, swoln arm, that pinned the hairy fright,

Strong as a god's, iron at the gullet's brawn;

Dug in his midriff, the close knees updrawn

Wedged deep the glutton sides that quaked and strove

A shaggy bulk, whose sharp hoofs horny drove.

Thus man and brute burned bent; when Urience slipped

One arm, the horror's tearing tusks had ripped

And ribboned redly, to the dagger's hilt,

Which at his hip hung long a haft gold-gilt;

Its rapid splinter drew; beamed twice and thrice

[pg 61]

High in the sun its ghastliness of ice

Plunged—and the great boar, stretched in sullen death,

Weakened thro' wild veins, groaned laborious breath.

And how he brought her water from a well

That rustled freshness near them, as it fell

From its full-mantled urn, in his deep casque,

And prayed her quaff; then bathed her brow, a task

That had accompaning tears of joy and vows

Of love, sweet intercourse of eyes and brows,

And many clinging kisses eloquent.

And how, when dressed his arm, behind him bent

She clasped him on the same steed and they went

On thro' the gold wood toward the golden West,

Till on one low hill's forest-covered crest

Up in the gold his castle's battlements pressed.

And then she felt she'd loved him till had come

Fame of the love of Isoud, whom from home

Brought knightly Tristram o'er the Irish foam,

And Guenevere's for Launcelot of the Lake.

And then how passion from these seemed to wake

Longing for some great gallant who would slake—

And such found Accolon.

And then she thought

How far she'd fallen and how darkly fraught

With consequence was this. Then what distress

[pg 62]

Were hers and his—her lover's; and success

How doubly difficult if Arthur slain,

King Urience lived to assert his right to reign.

So paused she pondering on the blade; her lips

Breathless and close as close cold finger tips

Hugged the huge weapon's hilt. And so she sighed,

"Nay! long, too long hast lived who shouldst have died

Even in the womb abortive! who these years

Hast leashed sweet life to care with stinging tears,

A knot thus harshly severed!—As thou art

Into the elements naked!"

O'er his heart

The long sword hesitated, lean as crime,

Descended redly once. And like a rhyme

Of nice words fairly fitted forming on,—

A sudden ceasing and the harmony gone,

So ran to death the life of Urience,

A strong song incomplete of broken sense.

There glowered the crimeful Queen. The glistening sword

Unfleshed, flung by her wronged and murdered lord;

And the dark blood spread broader thro' the sheet

To drip a horror at impassive feet

And blur the polished oak. But lofty she

Stood proud, relentless; in her ecstacy

A lovely devil; a crowned lust that cried

On Accolon; that harlot which defied

[pg 63]

Heaven with a voice of pulses clamorous as

Steep storm that down a cavernous mountain pass

Blasphemes an hundred echoes; with like power

The inner harlot called its paramour:

Him whom King Arthur had commanded, when

Borne from the lists, be granted her again

As his blithe gift and welcome from that joust,

For treacherous love and her adulterous lust.

And while she stood revolving how her deed's

Concealment were secured,—a grind of steeds,

Arms, jingling stirrups, voices loud that cursed

Fierce in the northern court. To her athirst

For him her lover, war and power it spoke,

Him victor and so King; and then awoke

A yearning to behold, to quit the dead.

So a wild specter down wide stairs she fled,

Burst on a glare of links and glittering mail,

That shrunk her eyes and made her senses quail.

To her a bulk of iron, bearded fierce,

Down from a steaming steed into her ears,

"This from the King, a boon!" laughed harsh and hoarse;

Two henchmen beckoned, who pitched sheer with force,

Loud clanging at her feet, hacked, hewn and red,

Crusted with blood a knight in armor—dead;

Even Accolon, tossed with the mocking scoff

"This from the King!"—phantoms in fog rode off.

[pg 64]

And what remains? From Camelot to Gore

That right she weeping fled; then to the shore,—

As that romancer tells,—Avilion,

Where she hath Majesty gold-crowned yet wan;

In darkest cypress a frail pitious face

Queenly and lovely; 'round sad eyes the trace

Of immemorial tears as for some crime:

They future fixed, expectant of the time

When the forgiving Arthur cometh and

Shall have to rule all that lost golden land

That drifts vague amber in forgotten seas

Of surgeless turquoise dim with mysteries.

And so was seen Morgana nevermore,

Save once when from the Cornwall coast she bore

The wounded Arthur from that last fought fight

Of Camlan in a black barge into night.

But oft some see her with a palfried band

Of serge-stoled maidens thro' the drowsy land

Of Autumn glimmer; when are sharply strewn

The red leaves, while broad in the east a moon

Swings full of frost a lustrous globe of gleams,

Faint on the mooning hills as shapes in dreams.

HE? why, a tall Franconian strong and young,

Brown as a walnut the first frost hath hulled;

A soul of full endeavor powerful

Bound in lithe limbs, knit into grace and strength

Of bronze-like muscles elegant, that poised

A head like Hope's; and then the manly lines

Of face developed by action and mobile

To each suggestive impulse of the mind,

Of smiles of buoyancy or scowls of gloom.—

And what deep eyes were his!—Aye; I can see

Their wild and restless disks of luminous night

Instinct with haughtiness that sneered at Fate,

Glared cold conclusion to all circumstance,

As with loud law, to his advantage swift:

With scorn derisive that shot out a barb,

Stabbed Superstition to its dagger hilt;

That smiled a thrust-like smile which curled the lip,

A vicious heresy with incredible lore,

[pg 66]

When God's or holy Mary's name came forth

Exclaimed in reverence or astonishment;

And then would say,

"What is this God you mouth,

Employ whose name to sanctify and damn?—

A benedictive curse?—'T hath past my skill

Of grave interpretation. And your faith—

Distinguishment unseen, design unlawed.

For earth, air, fire or water or keen cold,

Hints no existence of such, worships not,

Such as men's minds profess. Rather, meseems,

Throned have they one such as their hopes have wrought

In hope there may prove such an one in death

For Paradise or punishment. I hold

He juster were and would be kinglier kind

In sovereign mercy and a prodigal—

Not to few favored heads who, crowned with state,

Rule sceptered Infamies—of indulgence free

To all that burn luxuriant incense on

Shrines while they prayer him love's obedience.

Are all not children of the same weak mold?

Clay of His Adam-modeled clay made quick?

Endowed with the like hopes, loves, fears and hates,

Our mother's weaknesses? And these, forsooth,

These little crowns that lord it o'er His world,

Tricked up with imitative majesty,

[pg 67]

God-countenanced arrogances, throned may still

Cry, 'crawl and worship, for we are as gods

Through God! great gods incarnate of his kind!'

—Omnipotent Wrong-representatives!

With might that blasts the world with wars and wrings

Groans from pale Nations with hell's tyranny.

So to my mind real monarch only he—

Your Satan cramped in Hell!—aye, by the fiend!

To pygmy Earth's frail tinsel majesties,

That ape a God in a sonorous Heaven.

Grant me the Devil in all mercy then,

For I will none of such! a fiend for friend

While Earth is of the earth; and afterward—

Nay! ransack not To-morrow till To-day,

If all that's joy engulf you when it is."

And laughed an oily laugh of easy jest

To bow out God and hand the Devil in.—

I met him here at Ammendorf one Spring,

Toward the close of April when the Harz,

Veined to their ruin-crested summits, pulsed

A fluid life of green and budded gold

Beneath pure breathing skies of boundless blue:

Where low-yoked oxen, yellow to the knees,

Along the fluted meadow, freshly ploughed,

Plodded and snuffed the fragrance of the soil,

The free bird sang exultant in the sun.

[pg 68]

Triumphant Spring with hinted hopes of May

And jaunty June, her mouth a puckered rose.

Here at this very hostelery o' The Owl;

Mine host there sleek served cannikins of wine

Beneath that elm now touseled by that shrew,

Lean Winter. Well!—a lordly vintage that!

With tang of fires which had sucked out their soul

From feverish sun-vats, cooled it from the moon's;

From wine-skin bellies of the bursting grape

Trodden, in darkness of old cellars aged

Even to the tingling smack of olden earth.

Rich! I remember!—wine that spurred the blood—

Thou hast none such, I swear, nor wilt again!—

That brought the heart loud to the generous mouth,

And made the eyes unlatticed casements whence

The good man's soul laughed interested out.

Stoups of rare royal Rhenish, such they say

As Necromance hides guarded in vast casks

Of antique make far in the Kyffhäuser,

The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.

So, mellowed by that wine to friendship frank,

He spake me his intent in coming here;

But not one word of what his parentage;

But this his name was, Rudolf, and his home,

Franconia; but nor why he left nor when:

His mind to live a forester and be

[pg 69]

Enfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's train

Of buff and green; and so to his estate

Even now was bound, a youth of twenty-three.

And when he ceased the fire in his eyes

Worked restless as a troubled animal's,

Which hate-enraged can burn a steady flame,

Brute merciless. And thus I mused with me,

When he had ceased to fulminate at state,

"Another Count von Hackelnburg the fiend

Hath tricked unto the chase!—for hounds from Hell?"

But answered nothing, save light words of cheer

As best become fleet friends warm wine doth make.

Then as it chanced, old Kurt had come that morn

With some six of his jerkined foresters

From the Thuringian forest; damp with dew;

Red-cheeked as morn with early travel; bound

For Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel passed.

Chief huntsman he then to the goodly Duke,

And father of the sunniest maiden here

In Ammendorf, the blameless Ilsabe;

Who, motherless, the white-haired father prized

A jewel priceless. As huge barons' ghosts

Guard big, accumulated hoards of wealth,

Fast-sealed in caverned cellars, robber wells,

Beneath the dungeoned Dummburg, so he watched

Her, all his world in her who was his wealth.

[pg 70]

A second Lora of Thuringia she.

Faultless for love, instilled all souls with love,

Who, in the favor of her maiden smile,

Felt friendship grow up like a golden thought;

A life of love from words; and light that fell

And wrought calm influence from her pure blue eyes.

Hair sedate and austerely dressed o'er brows

White as a Harz dove's wing; hair with the hue

Of twilight mists the sun hath soaked with gold.

A Tyrolean melody that brought

Dim dreams of Alpine heights, of shepherds brown,

Goat-skinned, with healthy cheeks and wrinkled lips

That fill wild oaten pipes on wand'ring ways,

Embowered deep, with mountain melodies,—

Simple with love and plaintive even to tears,—

Her presence, her sweet presence like a song.

And when she left, it was as when one hath

Beheld a moonlit Undine, ere the mind

Adjusts one thought, cleave thro' the glassy Rhine

A glittering beauty wet, and gone again

A flash—the soul drifts wondering on in dreams.

Some thirty years agone is that; and I,

Commissioner of the Duke—no sinecure

I can assure you—had scarce reached the age

Of thirty (then some three years of that House).

Thro' me the bold Franconian, whom at first,

[pg 71]

By bitter principles and scorn of state—

Developed into argument thro' wine—

The foresthood like was to be denied,

Was then enfellowed. "Yes," I said, "he's young;

True, rashly young! yet, see: a wiry frame,

A chamois' footing, and a face for right;

An eye which likes me not, but quick with pride,

And aimed at thought, a butt it may not miss:

A soul with virgin virtues which crude flesh

Makes seem but vices, these but God may see—

Develop these. But, if there's aught of worth,

Body or mind, in him, Kurt, thou wilt know,

And to the surface wear, as divers win

From hideous ooze and life rich jewels lost

Of polished pureness, worthless left to night,

Thou or thy daughter, and inspire for good."

A year thereafter was it that I heard

Of Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe,

Then their betrothal. And it was from this,—

For, ah, that Ilsabe! that Ilsabe!—

Good Mary Mother! how she haunts me yet!

She, that true touchstone which philosophers feign

Contacts and golds all base; a woman who

Could touch all evil into good in man.—

Surmised I of the excellency which

[pg 72]

Refinement of her gentle company,

Warm presence of chaste beauty, had resolved

His fiery nature to, conditioning slave.

And so I came from Brunswick—as you know—

Is custom of the Duke or, by his seal

Commissioned proxy, his commissioner,—

To test the marksmanship of Rudolf who

Succeeded Kurt with marriage of his child,

An heir of Kuno.—He?—Great grandfather

Of Kurt, and one this forestkeepership

Was first possesor of; established thus—

Or such the tale they told me 'round the hearths.

Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train,

Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who came

With vast magnificence of knights and hounds,

And satin-tuniced nobles curled and plumed

To hunt Thuringian deer. Then Morn too slow

On her blithe feet was; quick with laughing eyes

To morrow mortal eyes and lazy limbs;

Rather on tip-toed hills recumbent yawned,

Aroused an hour too soon; ashamed, disrobed,

Rubbed the stiff sleep from eyes that still would close,

While brayed the hollow horns and bayed lean hounds,

And cheered gallants until the dingles dinned,

Where searched the climbing mists or, compact light,

Fled breathless white, clung scared a moted gray,

Low unsunned cloudlands of the castled hills.

[pg 73]

And then near mid-noon from a swarthy brake

The ban-dogs roused a red gigantic stag,

Lashed to whose back with grinding knotted cords,

Borne with whom like a nightmare's incubus,

A man shrieked; burry-bearded and his hair

Kinked with dry, tangled burrs, and he himself

Emaciated and half naked. From

The wear of wildest passage thro' the wild,

Rent red by briars, torn and bruised by rocks.

—For, such the law then, when the peasant chased

Or slew the dun deer of his tyrant lords,

As punishment the torturing withes and spine

Of some big stag, a gift of game and wild

Enough till death—death in the antlered herd

Or crawling famine in bleak, haggard haunts.

Then was the dark Duke glad, and forthwith cried

To all his dewy train a rich reward

For him who slew the stag and saved the man,

But death to him who slew the man and stag,

The careless error of a loose attempt.

So crashed the hunt along wild, glimmering ways

Thro' creepers and vast brush beneath gnarled trees,

Up a scorched torrent's bed. Yet still refused

Each that sure shot; the risk too desperate

The poor life and the golden gift beside.

So this young Kuno with two eyes wherein

[pg 74]

Hunt with excitement kindled reckless fire

Clamored, "And are ye cowards?—Good your grace,

You shall not chafe!—The fiend direct my ball!"

And fired into a covert deeply packed,

An intertangled wall of matted night,

Wherein the eye might vainly strive and strive

To pierce one foot or earn one point beyond.

But, ha! the huge stag staggered from the brake

Heart-hit and perished. That wan wretch unhurt

Soon bondless lay condoled. But the great Duke,

Charmed with the eagle shot, admired the youth,

There to him and his heirs forever gave

The forest keepership.

But envious tongues

Were soon at wag; and whispered went the tale

Of how the shot was free, and that the balls

Used by young Kuno were free bullets, which

Molded were cast in influence of the fiend

By magic and directed by the fiend.

Of some effect these tales were and some force

Had with the Duke, who lent an ear so far

As to ordain Kuno's descendants all

To proof of skill ere their succession to

The father's office. Kurt himself hath shot

The silver ring from out the popinjay's beak—

A good shot he, you see, who would succeed.

[pg 75]

The Devil guards his mysteries close as God.

For who can say what elementaries

Demoniac lurk in desolate dells and woods

Shadowy? malicious vassals of that power

Who signs himself, thro' these, a slave to those,

Those mortals who act open with his Hell,

Those only who seek secretly and woo.

Of these free, fatal bullets let me speak:

There may be such; our Earth hath things as strange;

Then only in coarse fancies may exist;

For fancy is among our peasantry

A limber juggler with the weird and dark;

For Superstition hides not her grim face,

A skeleton grin on leprous ghastliness,

From Ignorance's mossy thatches low.

A cross-way, as I heard, among gaunt hills,

A solitude convulsed of rocks and trees

Blasted; and on the stony cross-road drawn

A bloody circle with a bloody sword;

Herein rude characters; a skull and thighs

Fantastic fixed before a fitful fire

Of spiteful coals. Eleven of the clock

Cast, the first bullet leaves the mold,—the lead

Mixed with three bullets that have hit their mark,

Burnt blood,—the wounded Sacramental Host,

Unswallowed and unhallowed, oozed when shot

[pg 76]

Fixed to a riven pine.—Ere twelve o'clock,

When dwindling specters in their rotting shrouds

Quit musty tombs to mumble hollow woes

In Midnight's horrored ear, with never a cry,

Word or weak whisper, till that hour sound,

Must the free balls be cast; and these shall be

In number three and sixty; three of which

Semial—he the Devil's minister—

Claims for his master and stamps as his own

To hit awry their mark, askew for harm.

Those other sixty shall not miss their mark.

No cry, no word, no whisper, tho' there gibe

Most monstrous shapes that flicker in thick mist

Lewd human countenances or leer out

Swoln animal faces with fair forms of men,

While wide-winged owls fan the drear, dying coals,

That lick thin, slender tongues of purple fire

From viperous red, and croaks the night-hawk near.

No cry, no word, no whisper should there come

Weeping a wandering form with weary, white

And pleading countenance of her you love,

Faded with tears of waiting; beckoning

With gray, large arms or censuring; her shame

In dull and desolate eyes; who, if you speak

Or stagger from that circle—hideous change!—

Shrinks, faced a hag of million wrinkles, which

[pg 77]

Ridge scaly sharpness of protruding bones,

To rip you limb from limb with taloned claws.

Nor be deceived if some far midnight bell

Boom that anticipated hour, nor leave

By one short inch the bloody orbit, for

The minion varlets of Hell's majesty

Expectant cirque its dim circumference.

But when the hour of midnight smites, be sure

You have your bullets, neither more nor less;

For, if thro' fear one more or less you have,

Your soul is forfeit to those agencies,

Right rathe who are to rend it from the flesh.

And while that hour of midnight sounds a din

Of hurrying hoofs and shouting outriders—

Six snorting steeds postilioned roll a stage

Black and with groaning wheels of spinning fire,

"Room there!—ho! ho!—who bars the mountain-way!

On over him!"—but fear not nor fare forth,—

'Tis but the last trick of your bounden slave:

And ere the red moon strives from dingy clouds

And dives again, high the huge leaders leap

Iron fore-hoofs flashing and big eyes like gledes,

And, spun a spiral spark into the night,

Whistling the phantom flies and fades away.

Some say there comes no stage, but Hackelnburg,

Wild Huntsman of the Harz, rides hoarse in storm,

[pg 78]

Dashing the dead leaves with dark dogs of hell

Direful thro' whirling thickets, and his horn

Croaks doleful as an owl's hoot while he hurls

Straight 'neath rain-streaming skies of echoes, sheer

Plunging the magic circle horse and hounds.

And then will come, plutonian clad and slim,

Upon a stallion vast intensely black,

Semial, Satan's lurid minister,

To hail you and inform you and assure.—

Enough! these wives-tales heard to what I've seen;

To Ammendorf I came; and Rudolf there

With Kurt and all his picturesque foresters

Met me. And then the rounding year was ripe;

Throbbing the red heart of full Autumn: When

Each morning gleams crisp frost on shriveled fields;

Each noon sits veiled in mysteries of mist;

Each night unrolls a miracle woof of stars,

Where moon—bare-bosomed goddess of the hunt—

Wades calm, crushed clouds or treads the vaster blue.

Then I proposed the season's hunt; till eve

The test of Rudolf's skill postponed, with which

Annoyed he seemed. And so it was I heard

How he an execrable marksman was,

And whispered tales of near, incredible shots

That wryed their mark, while in his flint-lock's pan

Flashed often harmless powder, while wild game

[pg 79]

Stared fearless on him and indulgent stood,

An open butt to such wide marksmanship.

Howbeit, he that day acquitted him

Of these maligners' cavils; in the hunt

Missing no shot however rash he made

Or distant thro' thick intercepting trees;

And the piled, curious game brought down of all

Good marksmen of that train had not sufficed,

Doubled, nay, trebled, to have matched his heap.

And wonderstruck the jägers saw, nor knew

How to excuse them. My indulgence giv'n,

Still swore that only yesterday old Kurt

Had touched his daughter's tears and Rudolf's wrath

By vowing end to their betrothéd love,

Unless that love developed better aim

Against the morrow's test; his ancestor's

High fame should not be damaged. So he stormed,

But bowed his gray head and wept silently;

Then looking up forgave when big he saw

Tears in his daughter's eyes and Rudolf gone

Forth in the night that wailed with coming storm.

Before this inn, The Owl, assembled came

The nice-primped villagers to view the trial:

Fair fräuleins and blonde, comely, healthy fraus;

Stout burgers. And among them I did mark

Kurt and his daughter. He, a florid face

[pg 80]

Of pride and joy for Rudolf's strange success;

She, radiant and flounced in flowing garb

Of bridal white deep-draped and crowned with flowers;

For Kurt insisted this their marriage eve

Should Rudolf come successful from the chase.

So pleased was I with what I'd seen him do,

The test of skill superfluous seemed and so

Was on the bare brink of announcement, when,

Out of the evening heaven's hardening red,

Like a white warning loosed for augury,

A word of God some fallen angel prized

As his last all of heaven, penitent,

Hell-freed, sent minister to save a soul,

A wild dove clove the luminous winds and there,

A wafted waif, pruned settled on a bough:

Then I, "Thy weapon, Rudolph, pierce its head!"

Cried pointing, "And chief-forester art thou!"

Pale as a mist and wavering he turned;

"I had a dream—" then faltered as he aimed,

"A woman's whim!" But starting from the press

Screamed Ilsabe, "My dove!" to plead its life

Came—cracked the rifle and untouched the dove

Rose beating lustrous wings, but Ilsabe—

"God's wrath! the sight!"—fell smitten, and the blood

Sprang red from shattered brow and silent hair—

That bullet strangely thro' her brow and brain....

[pg 81]

And what of Rudolf? ah! of him you ask?

That proud Franconian who would scoff at Fate

And scorn all state; who cried black Satan friend

Sooner than our white Christ;—why, he went mad

O' the moment, and into the haunted Harz

Fled, an unholy thing, and perished there

The prey of demons of the Dummburg. But

I one of few less superstitious who

Say, as the finale of a madman's deed,

He in the Bodé, from that ragged rock,

The Devil's Dancing Place, did leap and die.

WHAT ogive gates from gold of Ophir wrought,

What walls of bastioned Parian, lucid rose,

What marts of crystal, for the eyes of Thought

Hast builded on what Islands of Repose!

Vague onyx columns ranked Corinthian,

Or piled Ionic, colonnading heights

That loom above long burst of mythic seas:

Vast gynaeceums of carnelian;

Micaceous temples, far marmorean flights,

Where winds the arabesque and plastique frieze.

Where bulbous domes of coruscating ore

Cloud—like convulsive sunsets—lands that dream,

Myrrh-fragrant, over siren seas and hoar,

Dashed with stiff, breezy foam of ocean's stream.

Tempestuous architecture-revelries;

Built melodies of marble or clear glass;

Effulgent sculptures chiseled out of thought

In misty attitudes, whose majesties

Feed full the pleasure as those beauties pass

To pale extinctions which are beauty fraught.

[pg 83]

On rebeck and on rose in plinths of spars,

On glimmering solitudes of flower and stone,

A twilight-glow swoons settled, burned with stars,

Deep violet dusk developing nor done.

Where float fair nacreous shapes like deities,—

Existences of glory musical,—

'Round whose warm hair twist fillets' coiling gold,

Their limbs Olympian lovely, and their eyes

Dark oblique fervors; and most languorous tall

In woven white with girdling gold threefold.

There darkling the consummate vintage sleeps,—

Lethe-nepenthes for Earth-agony,—

In sealéd amphorae some Sybil keeps,

World-old, forever cellared secretly.

A wine of Xeres or of Syracuse?

A fierce Falernian?—Ah! no vile Sabine!—

A stol'n ambrosia of what olden god?

Whose bubbled rubies maiden feet did bruise

From crusted vats of vintage rich, I ween,

Vivacious purple of some Samian sod.

Oh, for the cold conclusion of one draught!

Elysian ecstacy of classic earth!—

Where heroes warred with gods and where gods laughed

In eyes of mortal brown, a lusty mirth

[pg 84]

Of deity delirious with desire:

Where danced the sacrifice to hornéd shrines,

And splashed the full libation blue as blood.—

Oh, to be drunk with dreaming! to inspire

The very soul of beauty whence it shines

Too lost for utterance yet understood!

In cogitation of what verdurous shades,

Dull-droning quietudes where wild-bees lolled

Suck, lulled in pulpy lilies of the glades,

Barbaric-smothered with the kerneled gold:

Teased by some torso of the golden age,

Nude breasts of Cytherea, famous fair,

Uncestus'd, yet suggestive of what loves

Immortal! yearn enamoured; or to rage

With sun-burnt Poesy whose throat breathes bare

O'er leopard skins and flute among her groves.

AH, haughty hills, sardonic solitudes,

What wizard touch hath, crowning you with gold,

Cast Tyrian purple o'er broad-shouldered woods,

And to your pride anointed empire sold

For wan traditioned death, whose misty moods

Shake each huge throne of quarried shadows cold?

Now where the agate-foliaged forests sleep,

Bleak briars are ruby-berried, and the brush

Flames—when the winds armsful of motion heap

In wincing gusts upon it—amber blush;

The beech an inner beryle breaks from deep

Encrusting topaz of a sullen flush.

Dead gold, dead bronze, dull amethystine rose,

Rose cameo, in day's gray, somber spar

Of smoky quartz—intaglioed beauty—glows

Luxuriance of color. Trunks that are

Vast organs antheming the winds' wild woes

A faded sun and pale night's paler star.

[pg 86]

Bulged from its cup the dark-brown acorn falls,

And by its gnarly saucer in the streams

Swells plumped; and here the spikey spruce-gum balls

Rust maces of an ouphen host that dreams;

Beneath the chestnut the split burry hulls

Disgorge fat purses of sleek satin gleams.

Burst silver white, nods an exploded husk

Of snowy, woolly smoke the milk-weed's puff

Along the orchard's fence, where in the dusk

And ashen weeds,—as some grim Satyr's rough

Red, breezy cheeks burn thro' his beard,—the brusque

Crab apples laugh, wind-tumbled from above.

Runs thro' the wasted leaves the crickets' click,

Which saddest coignes of Melancholy cheers;

One bird unto the sumach flits to pick

Red, sour seeds; and thro' the woods one hears

The drop of gummy walnuts; the railed rick

Looms tawny in the field where low the steers.

Some slim bud-bound Leimoniad hath flocked,

The birds to Echo's shores, where flossy foams

Boom low long cream-white cliffs.—Where once buzzed

Unmillioned bees within unmillioned blooms,

One hairy hummer cramps one bloom, frost mocked,—rocked

A miser whose rich hives squeeze oozing combs.

[pg 87]

Twist some lithe maple and right suddenly

A leafy storm of stars about you breaks—

Some Hamadryad's tears: Unto her knee

Wading the Naiad clears her brook that streaks

Thro' wadded waifs: Hark! Pan for Helike

Flutes melancholy by the minty creeks.

TEACH me the wisdom of thy beauty, pray,

That, being thus wise, I may aspire to see

What beauty is, whence, why, and in what way

Immortal, yet how mortal utterly:

For, shrinking loveliness, thy brow of day

Pleads plaintive as a prayer, anemone.

"Teach me wood-wisdom, I am petulant:

Thou hast the wildness of a Dryad's eyes,

The shyness of an Oread's, wild plant:—

Behold the bashful goddess where she lies

Distinctly delicate!—inhabitant

Ambrosial-earthed, star-cousin of the skies.

"Teach me thy wisdom, for, thro' knowing, yet,

When I have drunk dull Lethe till each vein

Thuds full oblivion, I shall not forget;—

For beauty known is beauty; to sustain

Glad memories with life, while mad regret

And sorrow perish, being Lethe slain."

[pg 89]

"Teach thee my beauty being beautiful

And beauty wise?—My slight perfections, whole

As world, as man, in their creation full

As old a Power's cogitation roll.

Teach thee?—Presumption! thought is young and dull—

Question thy God what God is, soul what soul."

THEE freckled August, dozing hot and blonde

Oft 'neath a wheat-stack in the white-topped mead—

In her full hair brown ox-eyed daisies wound—

O water-gurgler, lends a sleepy heed:

Half-lidded eyes a purple iron-weed

Blows slimly o'er; beyond, a path-found pond

Basks flint-bright, hedged with pink-plumed pepper-grasses,

A coigne for vainest dragonflies, which glasses

Their blue in diamond.

Oft from some dusty locust, that thick weaves

With crescent pulse-pods its thin foliage gray,

Thou,—o'er the shambling lane, which past the sheaves

Of sun-tanned oats winds, red with rutty clay,

One league of rude rail-fence,—some panting day,

When each parched meadow quivering vapor grieves,

Nature's Astrologist, dost promise rain,

In seeping language of the thirsty plain,

Cool from the burning leaves.

[pg 91]

And, in good faith, aye! best of faith, art true;

And welcome that rune-chuckled forecasting,

When up the faded fierceness of scorched blue

Strong water-carrier winds big buckets bring,

Black with stored freshness: how their dippers ring

And flash and rattle! lavishing large dew

On tall, good-humored corn that, streaming wet,

Laughs long; while woods and leas, shut in a net

Of mist, dream vague in view.

And thou, safe-houséd in some pawpaw bower

Of close, broad, gold-green leaves, contented art

In thy prediction, fall'n within the hour;

While fuss the brown bees hiveward from the heart

Of honey-filtering bloom; beneath the cart

Droop pompous barnyard cocks damped by the shower:

And deep-eyed August, bonnetless, a beech

Hugs in disheveled beauty, safe from reach

On starry moss and flower.

WHEN I fare forth to kiss the eyes of Spring,

On ways, which arch gold sunbeams and pearl buds

Embraced, two whispers we search—wandering

By goblin forests and by girlish floods

Deep in the hermit-holy solitudes—

For stalwart Dryads romping in a ring;

Firm limbs an oak-bark-brown, and hair—wild woods

Have perfumed—loops of radiance; and they,

Most coyly pleasant, as we linger by,

Pout dimpled cheeks, more rose than rosiest sky,

Honeyed; and us good-hearted laughter fling

Like far-out reefs that flute melodious spray.

Then we surprise each Naiad ere she slips—

Nude at her toilette—in her fountain's glass,

With damp locks dewy, and large godlike hips

Cool-glittering; but discovered, when—alas!

From green, indented moss and plushy grass,—

[pg 93]

Her great eyes' pansy-black reproaching,—dips

She white the cloven waters ere we pass:

And a broad, orbing ripple makes to hide

From our desirous gaze provoked what path

She gleaming took; what haunt she bashful hath

In minnowy freshness, where her murmurous lips

Bubbling make merry 'neath the rocky tide.

Oft do we meet the Oread whose eyes

Are dew-drops where twin heavens shine confessed;

She, all the maiden modesty's surprise

Blushing her temples,—to deep loins and breast

Tempestuous, brown bewildering tresses pressed,—

Stands one scared moment's moiety, in wise

Of some delicious dream, then shrinks distressed,

Like some weak wind that, haply heard, is gone,

In rapport with shy Silence to make sound;

So, like storm sunlight, bares clean limbs to bound

A thistle's flashing to a woody rise,

A graceful glimmer up the ferny lawn.

Hear Satyrs and Sylvanus in sad shades

Of dozy dells pipe: Pan and Fauns hark dance

With rattling hoofs dim in low, mottled glades:

Hidden in spice-bush-bowered banks, perchance,

Mark Slyness waiting with an animal glance

[pg 94]

The advent of some Innocence, who wades

Thro' thigh-deep flowers, naked as Romance,

In braided shadows, when two hairy arms

Hug her unconscious beauty panting white;

Till tearful terror, struggling into might,

Beats the brute brow resisting; yields and fades,

Exhausted, to the grim Lust her rich charms.

BARBICAN, bartizan, battlement,

With the Abergavenny mountains blent,

Look, from the Raglan tower of Gwent,

My lord Hugh Clifford's ancient home

Shows, clear morns of the Spring or Summer,

Thrust out like thin flakes o' a silver foam

From a climbing cloud, for the hills gloom glummer,

Being shaggy with heath, yon.—I was his page;

A favorite then; and he of that age

When a man will love and be loved again,

Or die in the wars or a monastery:

Or toil till he stifle his heart's hard pain,

Or drink, drug his hopes and his lost love bury.

I was his page; and often we fared

Thro' the Clare desmene in Autumn hawking—

If the baron had known how he would have glared

From their bushy brows eyes dark with mocking!

[pg 96]

—That of the Strongbows, Richard, I mean—

Had growled to his yeomen, "A score! mount, Keene!

Forth and spit me this Clifford, or hang

With his crop-eared page to the closest oak!"

For he and the Cliffords had ever a fang

In the other's side,... but I see him choke

And strangle with wrath when his hawker told—

If he told!—how we met on that flowery wold

His daughter, sweet Hortense of Clare, the day

Her hooded tiercel its brails did burst

To trail with its galling jesses away;

An untrained haggard the falconer cursed,

Vain whistled to lure; when the eyas sped

Slant, low and heavily overhead

By us; and Sir Hugh,—who had just then cast

His peregrine fierce at a heron-quarry,—

In his stirrups rising, thus—as it passed,

By the jesses caught and to her did carry,

Lingering slender and tall by a rose

Whence she pulled the berries—But no two foes

Her eyes and Sir Hugh's!—And I swear each felt

A song in their hearts!—For I heard him quaver

Somewhat and then—by Mary!—he knelt!—

And the Lady herself in her words did waver

And wonder with smiles. Then daintily took

The hawk on her fist where it pruned and shook

[pg 97]

Its callowness ragged, as Hugh did seize

Softly the other hand long and white,—

Reached forth to him craving him rise from his knees,—

And mouthed with moist kisses an hundred quite.

Tho' she blushed up burning, no frowned "Beware!"

But seemed so happy! when crushing thro'—

Her sturdy retainer with swarthy stare—

The underwoods burst; and her maiden crew

Drew near them naming her name, and came

With leaves and dim Autumn blossoms aflame.—

"Their words?" I know not! for how should I?—

I paged my master but was no spy.

Nothings, I think, as all lovers', you know;

Yet how should I hear such whispered low,

Quick by the wasted woodland yellow?

When up thro' the brush thrashed that burly fellow

With his ale-coarse face, and so made a pause

In the pulse of their words, there my lord Sir Hugh

Stood with the soil on his knee: No cause

Had he—but his hanger he halfway drew—

Then paused, thrust it clap in its sheath again

And bowed to the Lady and strode away;

Up, vault, on his steed—and we rode amain

Gay to his towers that merry day.

He loved and was loved,—why, I knew!—for look,

All other sports for the chase he forsook;

[pg 98]

To ride in the Raglan marches and hawk

And to hunt and to wander. And found a lair,

In the Strongbow forest, of bush and of rock,

Of moss and thick ferns; where Hortense of Clare,

How often I wis not, met him by chance—

Perhaps!—Sweet sorceress out of romance,

Those tomes of Geoffrey—for she was fair!

Her large, warm eyes and hair,... ah, hair,

How may one picture or liken it!

With the golden gloss of its full brown, fit

For the Viviane face of lovable white

Beneath;—like a star that a cloud of night

Stops over to threaten but never will drench

Its tremulous beauty with mists that quench.—

Heigho!—but they ceased, those meetings. I wot

Watched of the baron, his menial crew;

For she loved too well to have once forgot

The place and the time of their trysting true.

But she came not—ah! and again came not:

"Why and when?" would question Sir Hugh

In his labored scrawls a crevice of rock—

The lovers' post—in its coigne would lock.

Until near Yule Love gat them again

A twilight tryst—by frowardness sure.—

They met. And that day was gray with rain—

[pg 99]

Or snow, and the wind did ever endure

A long, bleak moaning thorough the wood,

Smarted the cheek and chapped i' the blood;

And a burne in the forest cried "sob and sob,"

And whimpered forever a chopping throb

Thro' the rope-taunt boughs like a thing pursued.

—And there it was that he learned how she

(My faith! how it makes me burn and quiver

To think what a miserable despot he—

Lord Richard Strongbow, aye and ever

To his daughter was!) forsooth! must wed

With an Eastern Earl—some Lovell: one whom

(That God in His mercy had smote him dead!)

Hortense of Clare—but in baby bloom—

Never had mirrored with maiden eyes.

Sealed over a baby to strengthen some ties—

Of power or wealth—had been bartered then

And sold and purchased, and now ... but when

To her lover, the Clifford, she told this—there

He had faced with his love the talons of Death—

Only for her, who did stay with a stare

Of reproach all his heat and say in a breath,

"Is love, that thou sware to me aye and so often,

To live too feeble or—how?—doth it soften

And weaken away and—to die?—why die?—

Live and be strong! and this is why."—

[pg 100]

Her words are glued here so!... I remember

All as well as that sullen December,

That blustered and bullied about them and

Spat stiff its spiteful and cold-cutting snow

Where they talked there dreamily hand in hand,

While the rubbing boughs clashed rattling low.

Her last words these, "By curfew sure

On Christmas eve at the postern door."

And we were there, and a void horse too:

Armed: for a journey I hardly knew

Whither, but why you well can guess.

I could have uttered a certain name—

Our comrade's sure—of what loveliness!

Waited with love, impatience aflame.

While Raglan bulged its baronial girth

To roar to its battlements Yule and song;

Retainers loud rollicked in wassail and mirth

Where the mistletoe 'round the vast hearths hung,

And holly beberried the elden wall

Of curious oak in the banqueting hall.

And the spits, I trow, by the scullions turned

O'er the snoring logs, rich steamed and burned

With flesh; where the whole wild-boar was roasted

And the dun-deer flanks and the roebuck haunches;

Fat tuns of ale, that the cellars boasted,

[pg 101]

Old casks of wine were broached for paunches

Of the vassals that reveled in bower and stall;

Pale pages who diced and bluff henchmen who quarr'led

Or swore in their cups, while lean mastiffs all,

O'er bones of the feast in their kennels snarled;

For Hortense—drink! drink!—by the Virgin's leave,

Were wed to this Lovell this Christmas Eve.

"Was she long—Did she come?"... By that postern we

Like shadows lurked. Said my lord Sir Hugh:

"Yon tower, remember!—that casement, see!—

When a stealthy light in its slit burns blue

And signals thrice slowly, thus—'tis she."

And about his person his gaberdine drew,

For the wind it hugged and the snow beat thro'.

Did she come?—We had watched for an hour or twain

Ere that light burned there in the central pane

And was flourished thrice and departed so.

Then closer we packed to the postern portal

Horses and all in the stinging snow.

Stiff with the cold was I.—Immortal

Minutes we waited breath-bated and listened

Shuddering there in the gusty gale.

Whizzing o'er parapets sifted and glistened

Wild drift, thro' battlements hissed in a veil.

[pg 102]

Quoth my lord Sir Hugh, for his love was a-heat,

"She feels for the spring in the hidden panel

'Neath the tapestry ... ah! thou hast pressed it, sweet!

—How black gulps open the secret channel!

Now cautiously step, and thy bridal garb

Swirled warm with a mantle o' fur ... she plants

One foot—then a pause—on the stair—So, Barb,

So!—If the tempest that barks and pants

Would throttle itself with its yelps! then I

Might hear but one footstep echo and sing

Down the ugly ... there! 'tis her fingers try

The massy bolts which the rust makes cling."

But ever some whim of the wind that shook

The clanging ring of a creaking hook

In the buttress or wall; and we waited so

Till the East grew gray. Did she come?—ah, no!

I must tell you why, and enough: 'Tis said

On the eve of the marriage she fled the side

Of the baron, the bridegroom too she fled,

With a mischievous laugh, "I'll hide! I'll hide!

Seek! and be sure to seek well!" and led

A wild chase after her, but defied

All search for—a score and ten more years,

And the laughter of Yule was changed to tears.

But they searched and the snow was bleared with the glare

[pg 103]

Of torches that hurried thro' chamber and stair;

And tower and court re-echoed her name,

But she laughed no answer and never came.

So over the channel to France with his King

And the Black Prince, sailed to the wars—to deaden

The ache of the mystery—Hugh that Spring,

And fell at Poitiers: for his loss lay leaden

On hope, and his life was a weary sadness,

So he flung it away with a very gladness.

And the baron died—and the bridegroom, well,—

Unlucky that bridegroom, sooth!—to tell

Of him there is nothing. The baron died;

The last of the Strongbows he, gramercy!

And the Clare estate with its wealth and its pride

Devolved to the Bloets, Walter or Percy.

Ten years and a score thereafter. And they

Ransacked the old castle and mark!—one day

In a lonesome tower uprummaged a chest

From Flanders, of sinister ebon, carved

Sardonic with masks 'round an olden crest,

Gargoyle faces distorted and starved:

Fast fixed with a spring which they forced and lo!

When they opened it—ha, Hortense!—or, no!—

Fantastic a skeleton jeweled and wreathed

[pg 104]

With flowers of dust, and a minever

About it hugged, which quaint richness sheathed

Of a bridal raiment and lace with fur.

—I'd have given such years of my life—yes, well!—

As were left me then so her lover, Hugh,

For such time breathed as it took one to tell

How she forever, deemed false, was true!

He'd have known how it was, "For, you see, in groping

For the puny spring of that panel—hoping

And fearing as nearer and nearer grew

The boisterous scramble—why, out she blew

Her windy taper and quick—in this chest

Wary would lie for—a minute, mayhap,

Till the hurry all passed; but the death-lock pressed

—Ere her heart was aware—with a hungry snap."

YOU remember, the deep mist,—

Climbing to the Devil's Den—

Blue beneath us in the glen

And above us amethyst,

Throbbed and circled and away

Thro' the wild-woods opposite,

Torn and shattered, morning-lit,

Scurried up a dewy gray.

Vague as in Romance we saw

From the fog one riven trunk,

Its huge horny talons shrunk,

Thrust a hungry dragon's claw.

And we climbed two hours thro'

The dawn-dripping Jellicoes,

To that wooded rock that shows

Undulating peaks of blue:

The vast Cumberlands that sleep,

Weighed with soaring forests, far

To the concave welkin's bar,

[pg 106]

Leagues on leagues of purple sweep.

Range exalted over range

Billowed their enormous spines,

And we heard the priestly pines

Hum the wisdom of their change.

We were sons of Nature then;

She had taken us to her,

Closer drawn by brier and burr,

There on lonely Devil's Den.

We were pupils of her moods:

Taught the beauties of her loins

In those bloom-anointed coignes,—

Love in her eternal woods:

How she bore or flower or bud;

Pithed the wiry sapling-oak;

In the long vine zeal awoke

Aye to climb a leafy flood.

Her waste fantasies of birth:

Sponge-like exudations fair—

Dainty fungi everywhere

Bulging from the loamy earth.

Coral-vegetable things;

Crystals clamily exhaled;

Bulbous, marble-ribbed and scaled,

Vip'rous colored; then close rings

Of the Indian Pipe that cleft

[pg 107]

Pink and white the woodland lax,—

Blossoms of a natural wax

The brown mountain-fairies left.

We on that parched precipice,

Stretched beneath the chestnuts' burrs,

Breathed the balsam of the firs,

Felt the blue sky like a kiss.

Soft that heaven; stainless as

The grand woodlands lunging on,

Wound majestic in the sun,

Or as our devotion was!

Freedom sat there cragged we saw,

Freedom whom hoarse forests sang;

Heaven-browed her eyes, whence sprang

Audience august with law.

Wildernesses, from her hips

Sprung the giant forests there,

Tossed the cataracts from her hair,

Thunders lightened from her lips.

Oft some scavenger, with vane

Motionless, above we knew

Wheeled thro' altitudes of blue

By his rapid shadow's stain.

Or some cloud of sunny white,—

Puffed a lazy drift of pearl,—

Balmy breezes o'er would whirl

[pg 108]

Shot with coruscating light.

So we dreamed an hour upon

Those warm rocks, dry, lichen-scabbed.

Lounged beneath long leaves that dabbed

At us coins of shade and sun.

Then arose and down some gorge

Made a bowldered torrent broad

The hurled pathway of our road

Tumbled down the mountain large.

At that farm-house, which you know,

Where old-fashioned flowers spun

Gay rag-carpets in the sun,

By green apple-boughs built low,

Rested from our hot descent;

One deep draught of cider cool,

Unctuous, our fierce veins to dull

At old Hix's eloquent....

On Wolf Mountain died the light;

A colossal blossom, rayed

With rent petaled clouds that played

'Round a calyxed fury bright.

Down the moist mint-scented vale

To the mining camp we turned,

Thro' the twilight faint discerned

With its crowded cabins pale.

Ah! those nights!—We wandered forth

[pg 109]

On some shadow-haunted path

When the moon was late and rathe

The large stars; sowed south and north,

Clustered bursting heavens down:

And the milky zodiac,

Rolled athwart the belted black,

Myriad-million-moted shone.

And in dreams we sauntered till

In the valley pale beneath,

From a dew-drop's vapored breath

To faint ghosts, there gathered still,

Grave creations weird of mist:

Then we knew the moonrise near,

As with necromance the air

Pulsed to pearl and amethyst.

Shrilled the insects of the dusk,

Grated, buzzed and strident sung

Till each leaf seemed tuned and strung

For high Pixy music brusque.

Stealing steps and stealthy sighs

As of near unhallowed things,

Rustled hair or fluttered wings,

Seemed about us; then the eyes

Of plumed phantom warriors

Burned mesmeric from some bush

Mournful in the goblin hush,

[pg 110]

Then materialized to stars.

Mantled mists like ambushed braves,

Chiefed by some swart Blackfoot tall,

Stole along each forest wall—

Phosphorescent moony waves.

Then the moon rose; from some cup

Each hill's bowl,—magnetic shine,

Mist and silence poured like wine,—

Brimmed a monster goblet up.

Ingot from lost orient mines,

Delved by humpbacked gnomes of Night,

Full her orb loomed, nacreous white,

O'er Pine Mountain's druid pines.

As thro' fragmentary fleece

Her circumference polished broke,

Orey-seamed, about us woke

Myths of Italy and Greece.

Then—a chanson serenade—

You, rich-voiced, to your guitar

To our goddess in that star

Sang "Ne Tempo" from the glade.

AN agate black thy roguish eyes

Claim no proud lineage of skies,

No velvet blue, but of sweet Earth,

Rude, reckless witchery and mirth.

Looped in thy raven hair's repose,

A hot aroma, one tame rose

Dies envious of that beauty where,—

By being near which,—it is fair.

Thy ears,—two dainty bits of song

Of unpretending charm, which wrong

Would jewels rich, whose restless fire

Courts coarse attention,—such inspire.

Slim hands, that crumple listless lace

About thy white breasts' swelling grace,

And falter at thy samite throat,

To such harmonious efforts float.

Seven stars stop o'er thy balcony

Cored in taunt heaven's canopy;

No moon flows up the satin night

In pearl-pierced raiment spun of light.

[pg 112]

From orange orchards dark in dew

Vague, odorous lips the West wind blew,

Or thou, a new Angelica

From Ariosto, breath'd'st Cathay.

Oh, stoop to me and speaking reach

My soul like song, that learned low speech

From some sad instrument, who knows?

Or bloom,—a dulcimer or rose.

BROWS wan thro' blue-black tresses

Wet with sharp rain and kisses;

Locks loose the sea-wind scatters,

Like torn wings fierce for flight;

Cold brows, whose sadness flatters,

One kiss and then—good-night.

Can this thy love undo me

When in the heavy waves?

Nay; it must make unto me

Their groaning backs but slaves!

For its magic doth indue me

With strength o'er all their graves.

Weep not as heavy-hearted

Before I go! For thou

Wilt follow as we parted—

A something hollow-hearted,

[pg 114]

Dark eyes whence cold tears started,

Gray, ghostly arms out-darted

To take me, even as now,

To drag me, their weak lover,

To caves where sirens hover,

Deep caves the dark waves cover,

Down! throat and hair and brow.

But in thy sleep shalt follow—

Thy bosom fierce to mine,

Long arms wound warm and hollow,—

In sleep, in sleep shalt follow,—

To save me from the brine;

Dim eyes on mine divine;

Deep breath at mine like wine;

Sweet thou, with dream-soft kisses

To dream me onward home,

White in white foam that hisses,

Love's creature safe in foam.

What, Hero, else for weeping

Than long, lost hours of sleeping

And vestal-vestured Dreams,

Where thy Leander stooping

[pg 115]

Sighs; no dead eyelids drooping;

No harsh, hard looks accusing;

No curls with ocean oozing;

But then as now he seems,

Sweet-favored as can make him

Thy smile, which is a might,

A hope, a god to take him

Thro' all this hell of night.

Then where thy breasts are hollow

One kiss! one kiss! I go!

Sweet soul! a kiss to follow

Up whence thy breasts bud hollow,

Cheeks than wood-blossoms whiter,

Eyes than dark waters brighter

Wherein the far stars glow.

Look lovely when I leave thee!—

I go, my love, I go!

Look lovely, love, nor grieve thee,

That I must leave thee so.

FOR the mountains' hoarse greetings came hollow

From stormy wind-chasms and caves,

And I heard their wild cataracts wallow

Huge bulks in long spasms of waves,

And that Demon said, "Lo! you must follow!

And our path is o'er myriads of graves."

Then I felt that the black earth was porous

And rotten with worms and with bones;

And I knew that the ground that now bore us

Was cadaverous with Death's skeletons;

And I saw horrid eyes, heard sonorous

And dolorous gnashings and groans.

But the night of the tempest and thunder,

The might of the terrible skies,

And the fire of Hell that,—coiled under

The hollow Earth,—smoulders and sighs,

And the laughter of stars and their wonder

Mingled and mixed in its eyes.

[pg 117]

And we clomb—and the moon old and sterile

Clomb with us o'er torrent and scar!

And I yearned towards her oceans of beryl,

Wan mountains and cities of spar—

"'Tis not well," that one said, "you're in peril

Of falling and failing your star."

And we clomb—through a murmur of pinions,

Thin rattle of talons and plumes;

And a sense as of Boreal dominions

Clove down to the abysms and tombs;

And the Night's naked, Ethiope minions

Swarmed on us in legions of glooms.

And we clomb—till we stood at the portal

Of the uttermost point of the peak,

And it led with a step more than mortal

Far upward some presence to seek;

And I felt that this love was immortal,

This love which had made me so weak.

We had clomb till the limbo of spirits

Of darkness and crime deep below

Swung nebular; nor could we hear its

Lost wailings and moanings of woe,—

For we stood in a realm that inherits

A vanquishing virgin of snow.

COULD I divine how her gray eyes

Gat such cold haughtiness of skies;

How, some wood-flower's shadow brown,

Dimmed her fair forehead's wrath a frown;

How, rippled sunshine blown thro' air,

Tossed scorn her eloquence of hair;

How to a folded bud again

She drew her blossomed lips' disdain;

Naught deigning save eyes' utterance,

Star-words, which quicker reach the sense;

Then, afterwards, how melted there

The austere woman to one tear;

Then were I wise to know how grew

This star-stained miracle of blue,

How God makes wild flowers out of dew.

MY heart is high, is high, my dear,

And the warm wind sunnily blows;

My heart is high with a mood that's cheer,

And burns like a sun-blown rose.

My heart is high, is high, my dear,

And the Heaven's deep skies are blue;

My heart is high as the passionate year,

And smiles like a bud in dew.

My heart, my heart is high, my sweet,

For wild is the smell o' the wood,

That gusts in the breeze with a pulse o' heat,

Mad heat that beats like a blood.

My heart, my heart is high, my sweet,

And the sense of summer is full;

A sense of summer,—full fields of wheat,

Full forests and waters cool.

[pg 120]

My heart is high, is high, my heart,

As the bee's that groans and swinks

In the dabbled flowers that dart and part

To his woolly bulk when he drinks.

My heart is high, is high, my heart,—

Oh, sing again, O good, gray bird,

That I may get that lilt by heart,

And fit each note with a word.

God's saints! I tread the air, my dear!

Flow one with the running wind;

And the stars that stare I swear, my dear,

Right soon in my hair I'll find.

To live high up a life of mist

With the white things in white skies,

With their limbs of pearl and of amethyst,

Who laugh blue humorous eyes!

Or to creep and to suck like an elfin thing

To the aching heart of a rose;

In the harebell's ear to cling and swing

And whisper what no one knows!

To live on wild honey as fresh as thin

As the rain that's left in a flower,

And roll forth golden from feet to chin

In the god-flower's Danaë shower!

[pg 121]

Or free, full-throated curve back the throat

With a vigorous look at the blue,

And sing right staunch with a lusty note

Like the hawk hurled where he flew!

God's life! the blood of the Earth is mine!

And the mood of the Earth I'll take,

And brim my soul with her wonderful wine,

And sing till my heart doth break!

LONG vollies of wind and of rain

And the rain on the drizzled pane,

And the eve falls chill and murk;

But on yesterday's eve I know

How a horned moon's thorn-like bow

Stabbed rosy thro' gold and thro' glow,

Like a rich barbaric dirk.

Now thick throats of the snapdragons,—

Who hold in their hues cool dawns,

Which a healthy yellow paints,—

Are filled with a sweet rain fine

Of a jaunty, jubilant shine,

A faery vat of rare wine,

Which the honey thinly taints.

[pg 123]

Now dabble the poppies shrink,

And the coxcomb and the pink;

While the candytuft's damp crown

Droops dribbled, low bowed i' the wet;

And long spikes o' the mignonette

Little musk-sacks open set,

Which the dripping o' dew drags down.

Stretched taunt on the blades of grass,

Like a gossamer-fibered glass,

Which the garden-spider spun,

The web, where the round rain clings

In its middle sagging, swings;—

A hammock for Elfin things

When the stars succeed the sun.

And mark, where the pale gourd grows

Up high as the clambering rose,

How that tiger-moth is pressed

To the wide leaf's underside.—

And I know where the red wasps hide,

And the wild bees,—who defied

The first strong gusts,—distressed.

[pg 124]

Yet I feel that the gray will blow

Aside for an afterglow;

And a breeze on a sudden toss

Drenched boughs to a pattering show'r

Athwart the red dusk in a glow'r,

Big drops heard hard on each flow'r

On the grass and the flowering moss.

And then for a minute, may be,—

A pearl—hollow worn—of the sea,—

A glimmer of moon will smile;

Cool stars rinsed clean on the dusk,

A freshness of gathering musk

O'er the showery lawns, as brusk

As spice from an Indian isle.

LA Gitanilla! tall dragoons

In Andalusian afternoons,

With ogling eye and compliment

Smiled on you, as along you went

Some sleepy street of old Seville;

Twirled with a military skill

Moustaches; buttoned uniforms

Of Spanish yellow bowed your charms.

Proud, wicked head and hair blue-black!

Whence your mantilla, half thrown back,

Discovered shoulders and bold breast

Bohemian brown: and you were dressed—

In some short skirt of gipsy red

Of smuggled stuff; thence stockings dead

White silk exposed with many a hole

Thro' which your plump legs roguish stole

A fleshly look; and tiny toes

In red morocco shoes with bows

Of scarlet ribbons. Daintily

[pg 126]

You walked by me and I did see

Your oblique eyes, your sensuous lip,

That gnawed the rose you once did flip

At bashful Jose's nose while loud

Laughed the guant guards among the crowd.

And, in your brazen chemise thrust,

Heaved with the swelling of your bust,

That bunch of white acacia blooms

Whiffed past my nostrils hot perfumes.

As in a cool neveria

I ate an ice with Mérimée,

Dark Carmencita, you passed gay,

All holiday bedizenéd,

A new mantilla on your head;

A crimson dress bespangled fierce;

And crescent gold, hung in your ears,

Shone wrought Morisco; and each shoe

Cordovan leather, spangled blue,

Glanced merriment; and from large arms

To well-turned ancles all your charms

Blew flutterings and glitterings

Of satin bands and beaded strings;

And 'round each arm's fair thigh one fold,

And graceful wrists, a twisted gold

Coiled serpents, tails fixed in the head,

Convulsive-jeweled glossy red.

[pg 127]

In flowers and trimmings to the jar

Of mandolin and low guitar

You in the grated patio

Danced; the curled coxcombs' flirting row

Rang pleased applause. I saw you dance,

With wily motion and glad glance

Voluptuous, the wild romalis,

Where every movement was a kiss

Of elegance delicious, wound

In your Basque tambourine's dull sound.

Or as the ebon castanets

Clucked out dry time in unctuous jets,

Saw angry Jose thro' the grate

Glare on us a pale face of hate,

When some indecent colonel there

Presumed too lewdly for his ear.

Some still night in Seville; the street,

Candilejo; two shadows meet—

Flash sabres; crossed within the moon,—

Clash rapidly—a dead dragoon.

HUSH! She is dead! Tread gently as the light

Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.

Look:—In death's ermine pomp of awful white,

Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:

Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might—

Death! and how death hath made it vastly old.

Old earth she is now: energy of birth

Glad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly;

The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth;

Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be,

Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth,

Far Fairylands beyond some silent sea.

A sod is this whence what were once those eyes

Will grow blue wild-flowers in what happy air;

Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,

Haply, what summer with her affluent hair;

Blush roses bask those cheeks; and the wise skies

Will know her dryad to what young oak fair.

[pg 129]

The chastity of death hath touched her so,

No dreams of life can reach her in such rest;—

No dreams the mind exhausted here below,

Sleep built within the romance of her breast.

How she will sleep! like musick quickening slow

Dark the dead germs, to golden life caressed.

Low musick, thin as winds that lyre the grass,

Smiting thro' red roots harpings; and the sound

Of elfin revels when the wild dews glass

Globes of concentric beauty on the ground;

For showery clouds o'er tepid nights that pass

The prayer in harebells and faint foxgloves crowned.

So, if she's dead, thou know'st she is not dead.

Disturb her not; she lies so lost in sleep:

The too-contracted soul its shell hath fled:

Her presence drifts about us and the deep

Is yet unvoyaged and she smiles o'erhead:—

Weep not nor sigh—thou wouldst not have her weep?

To principles of passion and of pride,

To trophied circumstance and specious law,

Stale saws of life, with scorn now flung aside,

From Mercy's throne and Justice would'st thou draw

Her, Hope in Hope, and Chastity's pale bride,

In holiest love of holy, without flaw?

[pg 130]

The anguish of the living merciless,—

Mad, bitter cruelty unto the grave,—

Wrings the dear dead with tenfold heart's distress,

Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave.

If thou hast sorrow let thy sorrow bless

That power of death, of death our selfless slave.

"Unjust?"—He is not! for hast thou not all,

All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay

So heartless, blasted now, flushed spiritual,

A restless vassal of Earth's night and day?

This hath been thine and is; the cosmic call

Hath disenchanted that which might not stay.

Thou unjust!—bar not from its high estate,—

Won with what toil thro' devastating cares:

What bootless battling with the violent Fate;

What mailed endeavor with resistless years;—

That soul:—whole-hearted granted once thy mate,

Heaven only loaned, return it not with tears!

CAST on sleep there came to me

Three Urgandas; and the sea

In lost lands of Briogne

Sounded moaning, moaning:

Cloudy clad in awful white;

And each face a lucid light

Rayed and blossomed out of night,—

And a wind was groaning.

In my sleep I saw them rest,

Each a long hand at her breast,

A soft flame that lulls the West;—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

Hair like hoarded ingots rolled

Down white shoulders glossy gold,

Streaks of molten moonlight cold,—

And a wind was groaning.

Rosy 'round each high brow bent

Four-fold starry gold that sent

Barbs of fire redolent;—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

'Neath their burning crowns their eyes

Burned like southern stars the skies

Rock in shattered storm that flies,—

And a wind was groaning.

[pg 132]

Wisdom's eyes of lurid dark;

And each red mouth like a spark

Flashed and laughed off care and cark,—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

Mouths for song and lips to kiss;

Lips for hate and mouths to hiss;

Lips that fashioned hell or bliss,—

And the wind was groaning.

Tall as stately virgins dead,

Tapers lit at feet and head,

'Round whom Latin prayers are said,—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

Or as vampire women, who,

Buried beauties, rise and woo

Youths whose blood they suck like dew,—

And a wind was groaning.

Then the west one said to me:

"Thou hast slept thus holily

While seven sands ran secretly."—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

"Earth hath served thee like a slave,

Serving us who found thee brave,

Fearless of or life or grave."—

And a wind was groaning.

[pg 133]

"Know!"—she smote my brow; a pain,

Riddling arrows, rent my brain,

Ceased and earth fell, some vast strain;—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

Then I understood all thought;

What was life the spirit fraught;

Love and hate; how worlds were wrought:—

And a wind was groaning.

Then the east one said to me:

"Thou hast wandered wearily

By what mist-enveloped sea!"—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

"Know the things thou hast not seen;

Life and law, and love and teen;

Things that be and have not been."—

And the wind was groaning.

"See!" her voice sung like a lyre

Throbs of thunderous desire;

Then the iron sight like fire—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

Burst; the inner eyelids, which

Husked clairvoyance, with a twitch

Rose—and I with light was rich;—

And a wind was groaning.

[pg 134]

Then I saw the eyes of Sleep;

Nerves of Life and veins that leap;

Laws of entity; the deep:—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

Orbs and eons; springs of Power;

Circumstance—blown like a flower;—

Time—the second of an hour:—

And the wind was groaning.

To the central third one's full

Balanced being beautiful

Heart, to hearken, made a lull,—

And the sea was moaning, moaning;—

As she sternly stooped to me:

"Thou dost know and thou canst see;

What thou art arise and be!"—

And the wind was groaning.

To my mouth hot lips she pressed;

And my famished soul, thrice blessed,

Quaffed her radiance and caressed:—

And vague seas were moaning, moaning:—

Mounted; star-vibrating fled;

Soared to love, with her who said:

"Thou dost live and thou art dead."—

Far off winds were groaning.

ERE wild haws, looming in the glooms,

Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms;

And in the whistling hollow there

The red-bud bends as brown and bare

As buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm;

From some slick hickory or larch,

Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March,

The sad heart thrills and reddens warm

To hear thee braving the rough storm,

Frail courier of green-gathering powers,—

Rebelling sap in trunks and flowers;

Love's minister come heralding;

O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers!—

Thou brown-red pursuivant of Spring!

"Moan" sob the woodland cascades still

Down bloomless ledges of the hill;

And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang

[pg 136]

In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang

Sharp beaks and talons of the wind:

Black scowl the forests, and unkind

The far fields as the near; while song

Seems murdered and all passion, wrong.

One wild frog only in the thaw

Of spawny pools wakes cold and raw,

Expires a melancholy bass

And stops as if bewildered; then

Along the frowning wood again,

Flung in the thin wind's fangy face,

Thou, in red, woolly tassels proud

Of bannered maples, flutest loud:

"Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!"

"Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!"

Climbs beautiful and sunny-browed

Up, up the kindling hills and wakes

Blue berries in the berry brakes;

With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach,

Deep powders smothered quince and peach;

Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes;

Teaches each sod how to be wise

With twenty wild-flowers for one weed;

[pg 137]

And kisses germs that they may seed.

In purest purple and sweet white

Treads up the happier hills of light;

Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair,

Long dew-drops her pale fingers fair:

Big wind-retainers, and the rains

Her yeomen strong that flash the plains;

While scarlet mists at dawn,—and gold

At eve,—her panoply enfold.—

Her herald tabarded behold!—

Awake to greet! prepare to sing!

She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!"

SLEEP while I sing to thee, Dulcinea,—

How like a shower of moonlight-crusted beams

Of textile form compact, whose veins run stars,—

Discovered goddess of what naked loves!—

Maiden of dreams and aromatic sleep,

Thou liest. Thy long instrument against

Thy god-voluptuous sensuousness of hip

Pure iridescent pearl of ocean slopes:

Tempestuous silent color-melodies

Pulse glimmering from it beaten by the moon,—

Soft songs the white hands of white shadows touch.—

Magnetic star set slumberous over night,

Watch with me this superior star of Earth

Good Heaven was kind to grant me: Trembler,

Like some soft bird, dream, while I sing to thee—

Dream, languid ardor, my Dulcinea, dream.

FLOATS a wild chant of morning from the hills;

Bursts a broad song of sunlight on the sea;

High Heaven throbs strung with rays of chords and thrills,

Life's resonant pæans to Earth's minstrelsy.

Bind thou swift sandals on of youth,

My love, and harp to me of truth

In lands of joy or ruth.

Now sheer o'er solitudes of noon the strife

Of chariot fierce by chariot scintillant

Flames, and the blade-bare charioteers for life,

O'er-bent, close-curled, goad their hot yokes that pant.

Haste not, my love, but from the beam

Beside this olive-frosty stream

Sing while I rest and dream.

What swart Penthesilea, Amazon,

Hath, smitten, hurled her shield, that crescent there;

To wrench the barbéd arrow leaned,—voiced one

Defiant shout, breathed her red life in air.—

Tho' life be close to sunset, lo,

Into the sunset let us go

Still lyring joy not woe.

[pg 140]

How swims the Night thro' the deep-oceaned sky!

How at pale lips blown stars like bubbles break,

Burn, streamed from showery locks she tosses high!—

A stronger swimmer, Death, glares in her wake.—

Cast, love, ah cast thy harp away!

Aweary am I of thy lay—

Kneel down by me and pray.

WHEN love delays, when love delays and Joy

Steals a strange shadow o'er the happy hills,

And Hope smiles from To-morrow, nor fulfills

One promise of To-day, thy sight would cloy

This soul with loved despair

By seeing thee so fair.

When love delays, when love delays and song

Aches at wild lips regretful, as the sound

Of a whole sea strives in the shell-mouth bound,

Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, all this wrong

Would, at one little word,

Leap forth for thee a sword.

When love delays, when love delays and sleep

Nests in dark eyeballs, like a song of home

Heard 'mid familiar flowers o'er the foam,

Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, thou wouldst steep

This hurt heart overmuch

In balm with one true touch.

[pg 142]

When love delays, when love delays and Sorrow

Drinks her own tears that fever her soul's thirst,

And song, and sleep, and memory seem accurst,

For Hope smiles still to-morrowed, I would borrow

One smile from thee to cheer

The weary, weary year.

When love delays, when love delays and Death

Hath sealed dim lips and mocked young eyes with night,

To love or hate locked calm, indifferent quite,—

Hope's star-eyed acolyte,—what kisses' breath,

What joys can slay regret

Or teach thee to forget!

THOU hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst,

O narrow heart, that could not grasp so wide!

And tho' thy oaths seemed oaths yet they have lied,

And thy caresses, kisses were—denied—

Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst.

Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst;

O shallow eyes, that could not image deep!—

Enough! what boots it tho' ye weep and weep?

Her sleep is deep, too deep! so let her sleep—

Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst.

Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst;

For hadst thou, that confluent night and day

Had in oblivion currents borne away

Not one alone—but coward! thou didst stay—

Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst!

OH Life, thou hast no power left to strive,

Life, who, upon wild mountains of Surprise,

Behold'st Love's citadelled, tall towers rise,—

Shafts of clear, Paphian waters poured that live.

O Hope, who sought'st fulfillment of deep dreams

Beyond those Caucasus of Faith and Truth,—

Twixt silver realms of eld and golden youth

Rolled,—cloudward clustered; whose sonorous streams,

Urned in the palms of Death, gush to his feet:

Unlovely beauty of sad, stirless sight

Mixed in them with eternity of night;—

O Hope, how sad the journey once so sweet!

Dreams crowned with thorns have passed thee on the way;

And Beauties with bare limbs red-bruised and torn;

Tall, holy Hours their eyes dull, wan and worn,

Slaves manacled whom lashed the brutal Day.

And Sorrow sat beside a sea so wide,

That shoreless Heaven unto one little star

Upon the brink of night seems not so far,

And on her feet the frail foams tossing sighed.

[pg 145]

She, her rent hair, dressed like a siren's, full

Of weedy waifs and strays of moaning shells,

Streaked with the glimmering sands and foamy bells,

Loomed a pale utterance most beautiful.

"And thou shall love me, Sorrow!" I; but she

Turned her vast eyes upon me and no more;

Their melancholy language clove the core

Of my fast heart; and in mine ears the sea

Along gaunt crags yearned iron-husky grief;

Groaned the hard headlands with the wings of Storm,

Huge thunder shook the foot-hills and Alarm

Gnashed her thin fangs from hissing reef to reef.

So to the hills aweary I did turn.—

Beyond, a reach of sunlight and slim flowers;

Where Hope, an amaranth, and tearless Hours,

Long lilies, lived, whose hearts stiff gold did burn.

And there curled Joy clinked their chaste chalices;

Distilled at dusk, poured bubbling dewy wine,

Divine elixir! off his lips divine

Tossed the fleet rapture to the golden lees,

And so lolled dazed with pleasure. And I said,

"Yield me the lily thou hast drained that I

This hollow thirst may kill and so not die?"

To me he laughed, "I yield it!"—but 'twas dead.

[pg 146]

And each blown reach and eminence of blooms

Flushed long, low, gurgling murmurs like a sea,

And laughed bright lips that flashed white teeth of glee

In pearly flower on flower; pure perfumes

Gasped the rolled fields; and o'er the eminence

I journeyed joyless thro' a blossom-fire

That, budding kisses curled with blown desire,

Clasped me and claimed me tho' I spurned it hence.

Then came unto a land of thorns and weeds,

And dust and thirst o'er which a songless sky,

Hoarse with lean vultures, scowled a scoffing lie,

Where cold snakes hissed among dead, rattling reeds.

And there I saw the bony brow of Hate;

Vile, vicious sneers, the eyes of shriveled Scorn

Among the writhing briers; each a thorn

Of cavernous hunger barbed with burning fate.

They, thro' her face-drawn locks of raveled dark,

Stung a stark horror; and I felt my heart

Freeze, wedged with ice, to dullness part by part,

And knew Hate coiled toward me yet stood stark—

Fell; seeing on the happy, happy hills,

Above that den of dust and thorny thirst,

The bastioned walls of Love in glory burst,

Built by sweet glades of Poesy and rills.

[pg 147]

O Life, I had not life enough to strive!

O Hope, I had not hope enough to dream!

Death drew me to him and to sigh did seem,

"Love? Love?—thou canst not reach her and yet live!

"For sorrow, joy, and hate, and scorn are bound

About thee, girdling so, thy lips are dumb;

And Fame, ah Fame! her towers are but a tomb—

Star-set on dwindling heights of starry ground.

"And thou art done and being done must die,

Endeavor being dead and energy

Slain, a wild bird that beat bars to be free,

Despairing perished, finding life a lie."

IF thou wouldst know the Beautiful that breathes

Consanguined with young Earth, go seek!—but seek

No sighing Shadows with dead hemlock-wreaths,

No sleepy Sorrows whose wan eyes are weak

With vanished vigils, Melancholy made,

Forlorn, in lands of sin and saddening shade;

No tearful Angers torn of truthless Love,

Who stab their own hearts to dull daggers' hilts

For vengeance sweet; no miser Moods that fade

In owlet towers. Such it springs above,

And buds on morning meads no flower that wilts.

If thou dost seek the Beautiful, beware!

Lest thou discover her, nor know 'tis she;

And she enslave thee evermore, and there

Reward thee with but kingliest beggary:

Make thine the robust red her cheek that stings;

The kiss-sweet odor, thine, her wild breath brings;

Make thine the broad bloom of her crownéd brow;

The hearts of light that ardor her proud eyes;

That melody,—which is herself,—that sings

The poem of her presence and the vow,

That stars exalts and mortals deifies.

[pg 149]

Lone art thou then, lone as the lone first star

Kindling pale beauty o'er the mournful wave;

Lost to all happiness save searching far

Thro' lands of Life where Death hath delved no grave:

Lost,—even as I,—a devotee to her,

Poor in world-blessedness her bliss to share,

But rich in passion.—For her hermitage

Hope no Hydaspes' splendor, for it lies

Mossy by woody waters hidden, where

She, priestess pure, wise o'er all Wisdom sage,

Shrines artists' hearts for godliest sacrifice.

THEN up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced a crescent,—

Up and far up and over,—a warm erubescence liquescent

Rioted roses and rubies; eruptions of opaline gems,

Flung and wide sown, blushed crushed, and crumbled from diadems

Wealth of the kings of the Sylphs; whence, old alchemist, Earth—

Dewed down—by chemistry occult fashions petrified waters of worth.—

Then out of the stain and rash furor, the passionate pulver of stone,

The trembling suffusion that dazzled and awfully shone,

Chamelion-convulsion of color, hilarious ranges of glare—

Like a god who for vengeance ires, nodding battle from every hair,

Fares forth with majesty girdled and clangs with hot heroes for life,

Till the brazen gates boom bursten hells and the walls roar bristling strife,—

[pg 151]

Athwart with a stab of glittering fire, in-plunged like a knife,

Cut billowing gold, in bullion rolled, and an army driven,

Routed, the stars fled shriveled; and the white moon riven,

Puffed,—like a foam-feather forth of a Triton's conch when sounded,—

Clung, vague as a web, on heaven; then weak as a face that is wounded

Died on the withering clouds and sorrowed with them and mingled.

While up and up with a steadiness and triumph of sparkle that tingled,

Wrestled the tempest of Dawn, that hurricaned heaven with spangle,

And halcyon bloom like mercy,—a shatter, a scatter, a tangle

Of labyrinthed glory.—O God! with manifold mirth

The hallelujah of Heaven, hosanna of Earth.

And I in my vision imprisoned was restless and wan

With a yearning for vigor to gird and be gone

Out of false dreams to the true—realities noble of dawn.

VANISHING visions, whose lineaments steal into slumbers,

Loosened the lids of the sight the night that encumbers;

Secretly, sweetly with fingers of fog that were slow,

Slow as a song that mysterious

Passions the soul, till delirious,

Wrapped in mad melody mastering the uttermost woe,

Deep to the innermost deep it is shaken

Ruffled and rippled and tossed,

Tantalized, terrorized, cursed with a thirst that, unslaken,

Debauches with eyes that burn stolid, yet only shall waken

With infinite scorn of the cost

If no note of the rhapsody's lost.

Oh, for the music of moonbeams that master and sweep

Chords of the resonant deep!

Smiting loud lyres of Night, sonorous as fire,

Leap fluttering fingers of vanquishing flash and of flake

Fain at each firmament-universe-instrument star-strung.

Vibrating-vestured in garments of woven desire,

[pg 153]

Stoop to me, breathe on me, smile on me, waver, "Awake!

From waking to sleeping, to silence from manifold clamor,

To revelous regions of multiform glamour!"

Murmur and whisper "Awake!"

Oh, necromance banquets by fountains of fairy, the spar-sprung!

Oh, sorcerous beauties and wonders of wizards! oh take

The millions of morning-spun gleams,

All glitters of galloping streams,

The glimmer the gasp the clutch and the grasp,

That colorless crystals and virtuous jewels

As spasmodic fuels

Cuddle and huddle and clasp:

The wrinkle and crinkle of scintillant heat in white metals;

The quiver of terrible gold and the pearly

Lithe brilliance of soft, holy petals,

Of slender, sad blossoms, tumultuous tossed crispy and curly

In shadowy reaches of violet dark;

The burn of the stars and the spark

Fragile of foams that are fluted, to make

One cordial of dreams

To drink and to sink

Deep, deep into dreams nor awake.

AS to a Nymph in the ripple-ribbed body of ocean,

Down, down thro' vast stories of water, a hiss and devour

Electrify altitudes orbed,—pulses violent motion

Of Thunder, who treads the brute neck of the seas in his power,

Till their spine writhes lumped into waves,—the Nymph in her bower,

Rubbing moist sleep from her eyes, arises,—

Loosens the loops of her locks,

Loosens, and suddenly darts on the storm and surprises

The boisterous bands of the rocks,

That hoot to the riddling arrows of rain and of seas,

Mountainous these;—

Swirling and whirling,

She of the huge exultation beheld, with long tresses,

Dotted with bells of the hollow, hard foam, flung streaming,

Dives, bounds to the whirlwind embracing; then mockingly presses

Hair to wild face and wild throat, drifts desolate dreaming;

[pg 155]

With scorn then laughing and screaming,

Discovers full beauty of nakedness leaping and gleaming;

And showering the rain from her hair,

Pouts blown, curdled foam from her lips,

And eddying slips,

From the ravenous eyes of the Thunder that glare,

Away, away,

To the arms of her lover the Spray.

So I,—

At swift thoughts that were spoken, that came

As if winds had fashioned a speech—was a flame

That dwindled, was kindled, then mounted and,

Marvelling why,—

Stemming all thought, a gleam out of gleams

Was born into dreams.

Beautiful-bosomed, O Night! with thy moon,

Move in majesty slowly to majesty lightly!

Silent as sleep, who is lulled by a delicate tune,

O'er-stroke thou the air with a languor of moonlight brightly!

Thin ice, in sockets of turquoise fastened, the stars

Gash golden the bosom of heaven with fiery scars.

[pg 156]

Swoon down, O shadowy hosts,

O multitude ghosts,

Of the moonlight and starlight begotten!—Then swept

Whispers that sighed to me, sorrows that stealthily hovered,

Laughters with lips that were mist. And murmurings crept

On toward me feet that were glow; and faces uncovered,

Radiant and crystalline clear,

In tortuous, sinuous swirl of vapory pearl,

Waned near and more near.

Flashed faster a spiral of shapes and of shadows still faster,

On in a whirl of unutterable beauties by music expired,

That lived and desired,—

Born births of the brain of a rhapsody-reveling master;

And mine eyes, with their beauties infired,

Smiled scorn on dark Death and Disaster.

AH! now the orchard's leaves are sear,

Drip not with starlight-litten dew;

Green-drowned no moon-bright fruit hangs here;

Dead, dead your long, white lilies too—

And you, Allita, where are you!"

Then comes her dim touch, faintly warm;

Cool hair sense on my feverish cheek;

Dim eyes at mine deep with some charm,—

So gray! so gray! and I am weak

Weak with wild tears and can not speak.

I am as one who walks with dreams:

Sees as in youth his father's home;

Hears from his native mountain-streams

Far music of continual foam.

I  wot well o' his going

To think in flowers fair;—

His a right kind heart, my dear,

To give the grass such hair.

I wot well o' his lying

Such nights out in the cold,—

To list the cricket's crick, my sweet,

To see the glow-worm's gold.

An mine eyes be laughterful,

Well may they laugh, I trow,—

Since two dead eyes a yesternight

Gazed in them sad enow.

An my heart make moan and ache,

Well may it dree, I'm sure;—

He is dead and gone, my love,

And it is beggar poor.

IN samite sark yclad was she;

And that fair glimmerish band of gold

Which crowned long, savage locks of hair

In the moon brent cold.

She with big eyeballs gloomed and glowered,

And lightly hummed some Elfin's song,

And one could naught save on her stare

And fare along.

Yea; sad and lute-like was that song

And softly said its mystery;

Which quaintly sang in elden verse

"Thy love I'll be."

And oft it said: "I love thee true,

Sir Ewain, champion of the fair."

And never wist he what a witch

Was that one there.

[pg 160]

And never wist he that a witch

Had bound him with her wily hair,

Eke with dark art had ta'en his heart

To slay him there.

And all his soul did wax amort

To stars, to hills, to slades, to streams,

And it but held that sorceress fair

As one of dreams.

And now he kens some castle gray

Wild turrets ivied, in the moon,

Old, where through woodlands foaming on

A torrent shone....

In its high hall full twenty knights

With visors barred all sternly stand;

The following of some gracious brave,

Lord of the land.

And lo! when that dim damosel

Moved down the hall, they louted low;

And she was queen of all that band,

That dame of snow.

Now on that knight she stared eftsoons,

And cried on high unto her crew,

"Behold! Sir Knights, the dastard brave

Your king that slew."

[pg 161]

And all those heathen knights wox wild

Attonce; and all against him drave;

Long battle blades and daggers bright

Aloft did wave.

The press on him puissant bare

And smote him to the rush-strown earth;—

Tall, tall o'er all that Fairy rose

Aloud with mirth.

WHAT deity for dozing laziness

Devised the lounging coziness of this

Enchanted nook?—and how!—did I distress

His musing ease that fled but now, or his

Laughed frolic with some forest-sister, fair

As those wild hill-carnations are and rare?

Too true, alas!—Feel! the wild moss is warm

And moist with late reclining, as the palm

Of what hot Hamadryad, who, a-nap,

Props her hale cheek upon it, while her arm

Weak wind-flowers bury; in her hair the balm

Of a whole Spring of blossoms and of sap?

See, how the dented moss, that pads the hump

Of these distorted roots, elastic springs

From that god's late departure; lump by lump,

Pale tufts impressed twitch loose in nervous rings,

As crowding stars qualm thro' gray evening skies.

Indulgence grant thou my profane surprise,

[pg 163]

Pray!—then to dream where thou didst dream before,

Benevolent! ... here where the veiny leaves

Bask broad the fuzzy bosoms of their hands

O'er wistful waters: 'neath this sycamore,

Smooth, giraffe-brindled, where each ripple weaves

A twinkling quiver as of marching bands

Of Elfin chivalry, that, helmed with gold,

Split spilled the scaley sunbeams wrinkled off.

What brought thee here?—This wind that steals the old

Weird legends from the forests, with a scoff

To laugh them thro' their beards? Or, in those weeds,

The hermit brook so busy with his beads?—

How many Aves, Paters doth he say

In one droned minute on his rosary

Of bubbles—wot'st thou?—Pucker-eyed didst mark

Yon lank hag-tapers, yellow by yon way,

A haggard company of seven?—See

How dry swim by such curled brown bits of bark?

Didst mark the ghostly gold of this grave, still,

Conceited minnow thro' these twisted roots,

Thrust o'er the smoky topaz of this rill,

Dull-slumbering here? Or did those insect flutes—

[pg 164]

Sleepy with sunshine—buzz thee that forlorn

Tale of Tithonus and the bashful Morn?

Until two tears gleamed in the stealing stream

Trembling its polish o'er the winking grail?—

Nay! didst perplex thee with some poet plan

To drug this air with beauty to make dream,—

Ah, discreet Cunning, watching in yon vale!—

Me, wildwood-wandered from the marts of Man!