Part I
"And how canst thou in tourneys shine, Or tread the glittering festal floor? On chains of gold and cloth of pile, The looks of high-born Beauty smile; Nor peerless deeds, nor stainless line, Can lift to fame the Poor!"
His Mother spoke; and Elvar sigh'd-- The sigh alone confess'd the truth; He curb'd the thoughts that gall'd the breast-- High thoughts ill suit the russet vest; Yet Arthur's Court, in all its pride, Ne'er saw so fair a youth.
Far, to the forest's stillest shade, Sir Elvar took his lonely way; Beneath an oak, whose gentle frown Dimm'd noon's bright eyes, he laid him down And watch'd a Fount that through the glade, Sang, sparkling up to day.
"As sunlight to the forest tree"-- 'Twas thus his murmur'd musings ran-- "And as amidst the sunlight's glow, The freshness of the fountain's flow-- So--(ah, they never mine may be!)-- Are Gold and Love to Man."
And while he spoke, a gentle air Seem'd stirring through the crystal tides; A gleam, at first both dim and bright, Trembled to shape, in limbs of light, Gilded to sunbeams by the hair That glances where IT glides;[B]
Till, clear and clearer, upward borne, The Fairy of the Fountain rose: The halo quivering round her, grew More steadfast as the shape shone through-- O sure, a second, softer Morn The Elder Daylight knows!
Born from the blue of those deep eyes, Such love its happy self betray'd As only haunts that tender race, With flower or fount, their dwelling-place-- The darling of the earth and skies She rose--that Fairy Maid!
"Listen!" she said, and wave and land Sigh'd back her murmur, murmurously-- "A love more true than minstrel sings, A wealth that mocks the pomp of kings, To him who wins the Fairy's hand A Fairy's dower shall be.
"But not to those can we belong Whose sense the charms of earth allure? If human love hath yet been thine, Farewell,--our laws forbid thee mine. The Children of the Star and Song, We may but bless the Pure!"
"Dream--lovelier far than e'er, I ween, Entranced the glorious Merlin's eyes-- Through childhood, to this happiest hour, All free from human Beauty's power, My heart unresting still hath been A prophet in its sighs.
"Though never living shape hath brought Sweet love, that second life, to me, Yet over earth, and through the heaven, The thoughts that pined for love were driven:-- I see thee--and I feel I sought Through Earth and Heaven for thee!"
Part II
Ask not the Bard to lift the veil That hides the Fairy's bridal bower; If thou art young, go seek the glade, And win thyself some fairy maid; And rosy lips shall tell the tale In some enchanted hour.
"Farewell!" as by the greenwood tree, The Fairy clasp'd the Mortal's hand-- "Our laws forbid thee to delay-- Not ours the life of every day!-- And Man, alas! may rarely be The Guest of Fairy-land.
"Back to thy Prince's halls depart, The stateliest of his stately train: Henceforth thy wish shall be thy mine-- Each toy that gold can purchase, thine-- A fairy's coffers are the heart A mortal cannot drain."
"Talk not of wealth--that dream is o'er!-- These sunny looks be all my gold!" "Nay! if in courts thy thoughts can stray Along the fairy-forest way, Wish but to see thy bride once more-- Thy bride thou shalt behold.
"Yet hear the law on which must rest Thy union with thine elfin bride; If ever by a word--a tone-- Thou mak'st our tender secret known, The spell will vanish from thy breast-- The Fairy from thy side.
"If thou but boast to mortal ear The meanest charm thou find'st in me, If"--here his lips the sweet lips seal, Low-murmuring, "Love can ne'er reveal-- It cannot breathe to mortal ear The charms it finds in thee!"
Part III
High joust, by Carduel's ancient town, The Kingly Arthur holds to-day; Around their Queen; in glittering row, The Starry Hosts of Beauty glow. Smile down, ye stars, on his renown Who bears the wreath away!
O chiefs who gird the Table Round-- O war-gems of that wondrous ring!-- Where lives the man to match the might That lifts to song your meanest knight, Who sees, preside on Glory's ground, His Lady and his King?
What prince as from some throne afar, Shines onward--shining up the throng? Broider'd with pearls, his mantle's fold Flows o'er the mail emboss'd with gold; As rides, from cloud to cloud, a star, The Bright One rode along!
Twice fifty stalwart Squires, in air The stranger's knightly pennon bore; Twice fifty Pages, pacing slow, Scatter his largess as they go; Calm through the crowd he pass'd, and, there, Rein'd in the Lists before.
Light question in those elder days The heralds made of birth and name. Enough to wear the spurs of gold, To share the pastime of the bold. "Forwards!" their wands the Heralds raise, And in the Lists he came.
Now rouse thee, rouse thee, bold Gawaine! Think of thy Lady's eyes above; Now rouse thee for thy Queen's sweet sake, Thou peerless Lancelot of the Lake! Vain Gawaine's might, and Lancelot's vain!-- They know no Fairy's love.
Before him swells the joyous tromp, He comes--the victor's wreath is won! Low to his Queen Sir Elvar kneels, The helm no more his face conceals; And one pale form amidst the pomp, Sobs forth--"My gallant son!"
Part IV
Sir Elvar is the fairest knight That ever lured a lady's glance; Sir Elvar is the wealthiest lord That sits at good King Arthur's board; The bravest in the joust or fight, The lightest in the dance.
And never love, methinks, so blest As his, this weary world has known; For, every night before his eyes, The charms that ne'er can fade arise-- A star unseen by all the rest-- A Life for him alone.
And yet Sir Elvar is not blest-- He walks apart with brows of gloom-- "The meanest knight in Arthur's hall His lady-love may tell to all; He shows the flower that glads his breast-- His pride to boast its bloom!
"And I who clasp the fairest form That e'er to man's embrace was given, Must hide the gift as if in shame! What boots a prize we dare not name? The sun must shine if it would warm-- A cloud is all my heaven!"
Much proud Genevra[C] marvell'd, how A knight so fair should seem so cold; What if a love for hope too high, Has chain'd the lip and awed the eye? A second joust--and surely now The secret shall be told.
For, there, alone shall ride the brave Whose glory dwells in Beauty's fame; Each, for his lady's honour, arms-- His lance the test of rival charms. Joy unto him whom Beauty gave The right to gild her name!
Sir Lancelot burns to win the prize-- First in the Lists his shield is seen; A sunflower for device he took-- "Where'er thou shinest turns my look." So as he paced the Lists, his eyes Still sought the Sun--his Queen!
"And why, Sir Elvar, loiterest thou?-- Lives there no fair thy lance to claim?" No answer Elvar made the King; Sullen he stood without the ring. "Forwards!" An armed whirlwind now On horse and horseman came!
And down goes princely Caradoc-- Down Tristan and stout Agrafrayn,-- Unscath'd, alone, amidst the field, Great Lancelot bears his victor-shield; The sunflower bright'ning through the shock, And through that iron rain.
"Sound, trumpets--sound!--to South and North! I, Lancelot of the Lake, proclaim, That never sun and never air, Or shone or breathed on form so fair As hers--thrice, trumpets, sound it forth!-- Our Arthur's royal dame!"
And South and North, and West and East, Upon the thunder-blast it flies! Still on his steed sits Lancelot, And even echo answers not; Till, as the stormy challenge ceased, A voice was heard--"He lies!"
All turn'd their mute, astonish'd gaze, To where the daring answer came, And lo! Sir Elvar's haughty crest!-- Fierce on the knight the gazers press'd;-- Their wands the sacred Heralds raise,-- Genevra weeps for shame.
"Sir Knight," King Arthur smiling said (In smiles a king should wrath disguise), "Know'st thou, in truth, a dame so fair, Our Queen may not with her compare? Genevra, weep, and hide thy head-- Sir Lancelot, yield the prize."
"O, grace, my liege, for surely each The dame he serves should peerless hold, To loyal eye and faithful breast The loved one is the loveliest." The King replied, "Not crafty speech-- Bold deeds--excuse the bold!
"So name thy fair, defend her right! A list!--Ho Lancelot, guard thy shield. Her name?"--Sir Elvar's visage fell: "A vow forbids the name to tell." "Now out upon the recreant Knight Who courts yet shuns the field!
"Foul shame, were royal name disgraced By some light leman's taunting smile! Whoe'er--so run the tourney's laws-- Would break a lance in Beauty's cause, Must name the Highborn and the Chaste-- The nameless are the vile."
Sir Elvar glanced, where, stern and high, The scornful champion rein'd his steed; Where o'er the Lists the seats were raised, And jealous dames disdainful gazed, He glanced, nor caught one gentle eye-- Courts grow not friends at need:
"King! I have said, and keep my vow." "Thy vow! I pledge thee mine in turn, Ere the third sun shall sink,--or bring A fair outshining yonder ring, Or find mine oath as thine is now Inflexible and stern.
"Thy sword, unmeet to serve the right,-- Thy spurs, unfit for churls to wear, Torn from thee;--through the crowd, which heard Our Lady weep at vassal's word, Shall hiss the hoot,--'Behold the knight, Whose lips belie the fair!'
"Three days I give; nor think to fly Thy doom; for on the rider's steed, Though to the farthest earth he ride,-- Disgrace once mounted, clings beside; And Mockery's barbed shafts defy Her victim's swiftest speed."
Far to the forest's stillest shade, Sir Elvar took his lonely way: Beneath the oak, whose gentle frown Still dimm'd the noon, he laid him down, And saw the Fount that through the glade Sang sparkling up to day.
Alas, in vain his heart address'd, With sighs, with prayers, his elfin bride;-- What though the vow conceal'd the name, Did not the boast the charms proclaim? The spell has vanish'd from his breast, The fairy from his side.
Oh, not for vulgar homage made, The holier beauty form'd for one; It asks no wreath the arm can win; Its lists--its world--the heart within; All love, if sacred, haunts the shade-- The star shrinks from the sun!
Three days the wand'rer roved in vain; Uprose the fatal dawn at last! The Lists are set, the galleries raised, And, scorn'd by all the eyes that gazed, Alone he fronts the crowd again, And hears the sentence pass'd.
Now, as, amidst the hooting scorn, Rude hands the hard command fulfil, While rings the challenge--"Sun and air Ne'er shone, ne'er breathed, on form so fair As Arthur's Queen,"--a single horn Came from the forest hill.
A note so distant and so lone, And yet so sweet,--it thrill'd along, It hush'd the Champion on his steed, Startled the rude hands from their deed, Charm'd the stern Arthur on his throne, And still'd the shouting throng.
To North, to South, to East, and West, They turn'd their eyes; and o'er the plain, On palfrey white, a Ladye rode; As woven light her mantle glow'd. Two lovely shapes, in azure dress'd, Walk'd first, and led the rein.
The crowd gave way, as onward bore That vision from the Land of Dreams; Veil'd was the gentle rider's face, But not the two her path that grace. How dim beside the charms they wore All human beauty seems!
So to the throne the pageant came, And thus the Fairy to the King: "Not unto thee for ever dear, By minstrel's song, to knighthood's ear Beseems the wrath that wrongs the vow, Which hallows ev'n a name.
"Bloom there no flowers more sweet by night? Come, Queen, before the judgment throne; Behold Sir Elvar's nameless bride! Now, Queen, his doom thyself decide." She raised her veil,--and all her light Of beauty round them shone!
The bloom, the eyes, the locks, the smile, That never earth nor time could dim;-- Day grew more bright, and air more clear, As Heaven itself were brought more near.-- And oh! his joy, who felt, the while, That light but glow'd for him!
"My steed, my lance, vain Champion, now To arms: and Heaven defend the right!"-- Here spake the Queen, "The strife is past," And in the Lists her glove she cast, "And I myself will crown thy brow, Thou love-defended Knight!"
He comes to claim the garland crown; The changeful thousands shout his name; And faithless beauty round him smiled, How cold, beside the Forest's Child, Who ask'd not love to bring renown, And clung to love in shame!
He bears the prize to those dear feet: "Not mine the guerdon! oh, not mine!" Sadly the fated Fairy hears, And smiles through unreproachful tears; "Nay, keep the flowers, and be they sweet When I--no more am thine!"
She lower'd the veil, she turn'd the rein, And ere his lips replied, was gone. As on she went her charmed way, No mortal dared the steps to stay: And when she vanish'd from the plain All space seem'd left alone!
Oh, woe! that fairy shape no more Shall bless thy love nor rouse thy pride! He seeks the wood, he gains the spot-- The Tree is there, the Fountain not;-- Dried up:--its mirthful play is o'er. Ah, where the Fairy Bride?
Alas, with fairies as with men, Who love are victims from the birth! A fearful doom the fairy shrouds, If once unveil'd by day to crowds. The Fountain vanish'd from the glen, The Fairy from the earth!
[A] As the subject of this tale is suggested by one of the Fabliaux, the author has represented Arthur and Guenever, according to the view of their characters taken in those French romances--which he hopes he need scarcely say is very different from that taken in his maturer Poem upon the adventures and ordeal of the Dragon King.
[B] "With hair that gilds the water as it glides."--MARLOWE, Edw. II.
[C] As Guenever is often called Genevra in the French romances, the latter name is here adopted for the sake of euphony.
THE BEACON.
I.
How broad and bright athwart the wave, Its steadfast light the Beacon gave! Far beetling from the headland shore, The rock behind, the surge before,-- How lone and stern and tempest-sear'd, Its brow to Heaven the turret rear'd! Type of the glorious souls that are The lamps our wandering barks to light, With storm and cloud round every star, The Fire-Guides of the Night!
II.
How dreary was that solitude! Around it scream'd the sea-fowl's brood; The only sound, amidst the strife Of wind, and wave, that spoke of life, Except when Heaven's ghost-stars were pale, The distant cry from hurrying sail. From year to year the weeds had grown O'er walls slow-rotting with the damp; And, with the weeds, decay'd, alone, The Warder of the lamp.
III.
But twice in every week from shore Fuel and food the boatmen bore; And then so dreary was the scene, So wild and grim the warder's mien, So many a darksome legend gave Awe to that Tadmor of the wave, That scarce the boat the rock could gain, Scarce heaved the pannier on the stone, Than from the rock and from the main, Th' unwilling life was gone.
IV.
A man he was whom man had driven To loathe the earth and doubt the heaven; A tyrant foe (beloved in youth) Had call'd the law to crush the truth; Stripp'd hearth and home, and left to shame The broken heart--the blacken'd name. Dark exile from his kindred, then, He hail'd the rock, the lonely wild: Upon the man at war with men The frown of Nature smiled.
V.
But suns on suns had roll'd away; The frame was bow'd, the locks were grey: And the eternal sea and sky Seem'd one still death to that dead eye; And Terror, like a spectre, rose From the dull tomb of that repose. No sight, no sound, of human-kind; The hours, like drops upon the stone! What countless phantoms man may find In that dark word--"ALONE!"
VI.
Dreams of blue Heaven and Hope can dwell With Thraldom in its narrowest cell; The airy mind may pierce the bars, Elude the chain, and hail the stars: Canst thou no drearier dungeon guess In space, when space is loneliness? The body's freedom profits none, The heart desires an equal scope; All nature is a gaol to one Who knows nor love nor hope!
VII.
One day, all summer in the sky, A happy crew came gliding by, With songs of mirth, and looks of glee-- A human sunbeam o'er the sea! "O Warder of the Beacon," cried A noble youth, the helm beside, "This summer-day how canst thou bear To guard thy smileless rock alone, And through the hum of Nature hear No heart-beat, save thine own?"
VIII.
"I cannot bear to live alone, To hear no heart-heat, save my own; Each moment, on this crowded earth, The joy-bells ring some new-born birth; Can ye not spare one form--but one, The lowest--least beneath the sun, To make the morning musical With welcome from a human sound?" "Nay," spake the youth,--"and is that all? Thy comrade shall be found."
IX.
The boat sail'd on, and o'er the main The awe of silence closed again; But in the wassail hours of night, When goblets go their rounds of light, And in the dance, and by the side Of her, yon moon shall mark his bride, Before that Child of Pleasure rose, The lonely rock--the lonelier one, A haunting spectre--till he knows The human wish is won!
X.
Low-murmuring round the turret's base Wave glides on wave its gentle chase; Lone on the rock, the warder hears The oar's faint music--hark! it nears-- It gains the rock; the rower's hand Aids a gray, time-worn form to land. "Behold the comrade sent to thee!" He said--then went. And in that place The Twain were left; and Misery And Guilt stood face to face!
XI.
Yes, face to face once more array'd, Stood the Betrayer--the Betray'd! Oh, how through all those gloomy years, When Guilt revolves what Conscience fears, Had that wrong'd victim breathed the vow That if but face to face--And now, There, face to face with him he stood, By the great sea, on that wild steep; Around, the voiceless Solitude, Below, the funeral Deep!
XII.
They gazed--the Injurer's face grew pale-- Pale writhe the lips, the murmurs fail, And thrice he strives to speak--in vain! The sun looks blood-red on the main, The boat glides, waning less and less-- No Law lives in the wilderness, Except Revenge--man's first and last! Those wrongs--that wretch--could they forgive? All that could sweeten life was past; Yet, oh, how sweet to live!
XIII.
He gazed before, he glanced behind; There, o'er the steep rock seems to wind The devious, scarce-seen path, a snake In slime and sloth might, labouring, make. With a wild cry he springs;--he crawls; Crag upon crag he clears;--and falls Breathless and mute; and o'er him stands, Pale as himself, the chasing foe-- Mercy! what mean those clasped hands, Those lips that tremble so?
XIV.
"Thou hast cursed my life, my wealth despoil'd; My hearth "is cold, my name is soil'd; The wreck of what was Man, I stand 'Mid the lone sea and desert land! Well, I forgive thee all; but be A human voice and face to me! O stay--O stay--and let me yet One thing, that speaks man's language, know!-- The waste hath taught me to forget That earth once held a foe!"
XV.
O Heaven! methinks, from thy soft skies, Look'd tearful down the angel-eyes; Back to those walls to mark them go, Hand clasp'd in hand--the Foe and Foe! And when the sun sunk slowly there, Low knelt the prayerless man in prayer. He knelt, no more the lonely one; Within, secure, a comrade sleeps; That sun shall not go down upon A desert in the deeps.
XVI.
He knelt--the man who half till then Forgot his God in loathing men,-- He knelt, and pray'd that God to spare The Foe to grow the Brother there; And, reconciled by Love to Heaven, Forgiving--was he not forgiven? "Yes, man for man thou didst create; Man's wrongs, man's blessings can atone! To learn how Love can spring from Hate-- Go, Hate,--and live alone."
THE LAY OF THE MINSTREL'S HEART.
It was the time when Spring on Earth Gives Eden to the young; On Provence shone the Vesper star; Beneath fair Marguerite's lattice-bar The Minstrel, Aymer, sung--
"The year may take a second birth, But May is swift of wing; The Heart whose sunshine lives in thee One May from year to year shall see; Thy love, eternal spring!"
The Ladye blush'd, the Ladye sighed, All Heaven was in that Hour! The Heart he pledged was leal and brave-- And what the pledge the Ladye gave?-- Her hand let fall a flower!
And when shall Aymer claim his Bride? It is the hour to part! He goes to guard the Saviour's grave;-- Her pledge, a flower, the Maiden gave, And his--the Minstrel's heart!
Behold, a Cross, a Grave, a Foe! What else--Man's Holy Land? High deeds, that level Rank to Fame, Have bought young Aymer's right to claim The high-born Maiden's hand.
High deeds should ask no meed below-- Their meed is in the sky. The poison-dart, in Victory's hour, Has pierced the Heart where lies the flower, And hers its latest sigh!
It is the time when Spring on Earth Gives Eden to the young, And harp and hymn proclaim the Bride, Who smiles, Count Raimond, by thy side,-- The Maid whom Aymer sung!
And, darkly through the wassail mirth, A pale procession see!-- Turn, Marguerite, from the bridegroom turn-- Thine Aymer's heart--the funeral urn-- His pledge, comes back to thee!
Lo, on the Urn how wither'd lies Thy gift--the scentless flower! Amid those garlands, fresh and fair, That prank the hall and glad the air, What does that wither'd flower?
One tear bedew'd the Ladye's eyes, No tears beseem the day. The dead can ne'er to life return "A marble tomb shall grace the Urn," She said, and turn'd away.
The marble rose the Urn above, The World went on the same; The Ladye smiled. Count Raimond's bride, And flowers, like hers, that bloom'd and died, Each May returning came.
The faded flower, the dream of love, The poison and the dart, The tearful trust, the smiling wrong, The tomb,--behold, O Child of Song, The History of thy Heart!
Narrative Lyrics.
OR,
THE PARCAE;
IN SIX LEAVES FROM THE SIBYL'S BOOK.
The Parcae.--Leaf the First.
NAPOLEON AT ISOLA BELLA.
In the Isola Bella, upon the Lago Maggiore, where the richest vegetation of the tropics grows in the vicinity of the Alps, there is a lofty laurel-tree (the bay), tall as the tallest oak, on which, a few days before the battle of Marengo, Napoleon carved the word "BATTAGLIA." The bark has fallen away from the inscription, most of the letters are gone, and the few left are nearly effaced.
I.
O fairy island of a fairy sea, Wherein Calypso might have spell'd the Greek, Or Flora piled her fragrant treasury, Cull'd from each shore her Zephyr's wings could seek.-- From rocks, where aloes blow.
Tier upon tier, Hesperian fruits arise; The hanging bowers of this soft Babylon; An India mellows in the Lombard skies, And changelings, stolen from the Lybian sun, Smile to yon Alps of snow.
II.
Amid this gentlest dream-land of the wave, Arrested, stood the wondrous Corsican; As if one glimpse the better angel gave Of the bright garden-life vouschafed to man Ere blood defiled the world.
He stood--that grand Sesostris of the North-- While paused the car to which were harness'd kings; And in the airs, that lovingly sigh'd forth The balms of Araby, his eagle-wings Their sullen thunder furl'd.
III.
And o'er the marble hush of those large brows, Dread with the awe of the Olympian nod, A giant laurel spread its breathless boughs, The prophet-tree of the dark Pythian god, Shadowing the doom of thrones!
What, in such hour of rest and scene of joy, Stirs in the cells of that unfathom'd brain? Comes back one memory of the musing boy, Lone gazing o'er the yet unmeasured main, Whose waifs are human bones?
IV.
To those deep eyes doth one soft dream return? Soft with the bloom of youth's unrifled spring, When Hope first fills from founts divine the urn, And rapt Ambition, on the angel's wing, Floats first through golden air?
Or doth that smile recall the midnight street, When thine own star the solemn ray denied, And to a stage-mime,[A] for obscure retreat From hungry Want, the destined Caesar sigh'd?-- Still Fate, as then, asks prayer.
V.
Under that prophet tree, thou standest now; Inscribe thy wish upon the mystic rind; Hath the warm human heart no tender vow Link'd with sweet household names?--no hope enshrined Where thoughts are priests of Peace.
Or, if dire Hannibal thy model be, Dread lest, like him, thou bear the thunder home! Perchance ev'n now a Scipio dawns for thee, Thou doomest Carthage while thou smitest Rome-- Write, write "Let carnage cease!"
VI.
Whispers from heaven have strife itself inform'd;-- "Peace" was our dauntless Falkland's latest sigh, Navarre's frank Henry fed the forts he storm'd. Wild Xerxes wept the Hosts he doom'd to die! Ev'n War pays dues to Love!
Note how harmoniously the art of Man Blends with the Beautiful of Nature! see How the true Laurel of the Delian Shelters the Grace!--Apollo's peaceful tree Blunts ev'n the bolt of Jove.
VII.
Write on the sacred bark such votive prayer, As the mild Power may grant in coming years, Some word to make thy memory gentle there;-- More than renown, kind thought for men endears A Hero to Mankind.
Slow moved the mighty hand--a tremour shook The leaves, and hoarse winds groan'd along the wood; The Pythian tree the damning sentence took, And to the sun the battle-word of blood Glared from the gashing rind.
VIII.
So thou hast writ the word, and sign'd thy doom: Farewell, and pass upon thy gory way, The direful skein the pausing Fates resume! Let not the Elysian grove thy steps delay From thy Promethean goal.
The fatal tree the abhorrent word retain'd, Till the last Battle on its bloody strand Flung what were nobler had no life remain'd,-- The crownless front and the disarmed hand And the' foil'd Titan Soul;
IX.
Now, year by year, the warrior's iron mark Crumbles away from the majestic tree, The indignant life-sap ebbing from the bark Where the grim death-word to Humanity Profaned the Lord of Day.
High o'er the pomp of blooms, as greenly still, Aspires that tree--the Archetype of Fame, The stem rejects all chronicle of ill; The bark shrinks back--the tree survives the same-- The record rots away.
BAVENO, Oct. 8, 1845.
The Parcae.----Leaf the Second.
MAZARIN.
FAREWELL TO THE BEAUTIFUL, WITHOUT.
"I was walking, some days after, in the new apartments of his palace. I recognized the approach of the cardinal (Mazaria) by the sound of his slippered feet, which he dragged one after the other, as a man enfeebled by a mortal malady. I concealed myself behind the tapestry, and I heard him say, 'Il faut quitter tout cela!' ('I must leave all that!') He stopped at every step, for he was very feeble, and casting his eyes on each object that attracted him, he sighed forth, as from the bottom of his heart, 'II faut quitter tout cela! What pains have I taken to acquire these things! Can I abandon them without regret? I shall never see them more where I am about to go!'" &c.--MEMOIRES INEDITS DE LOUIS HENRI, COMTE DE BRIENNE, Barriere's Edition, vol. ii. p. 115.
Serene the Marble Images Gleam'd down, in lengthen'd rows; Their life, like the Uranides, A glory and repose.
Glow'd forth the costly canvas spoil From many a gorgeous frame; One race will starve the living toil, The next will gild the name.
That stately silence silvering through, The steadfast tapers shone Upon the Painter's pomp of hue, The Sculptor's solemn stone.
Saved from the deluge-storm of Time, Within that ark, survey Whate'er of elder Art sublime Survives a world's decay!
There creeps a foot, there sighs a breath, Along the quiet floor; An old man leaves his bed of death To count his treasures o'er.
Behold the dying mortal glide Amidst the eternal Art; It were a sight to stir with pride Some pining Painter's heart!
It were a sight that might beguile Sad Genius from the Hour, To see the life of Genius smile Upon the death of Power.
The ghost-like master of that hall Is king-like in the land; And France's proudest heads could fall Beneath that spectre hand.
Veil'd in the Roman purple, preys The canker-worm within; And more than Bourbon's sceptre sways The crook of Mazarin.
Italian, yet more dear to thee Than sceptre, or than crook, The Art in which thine Italy Still charm'd thy glazing look!
So feebly, and with wistful eyes, He crawls along the floor; A dying man, who, ere he dies, Would count his treasures o'er.
And, from the landscape's soft repose, Smiled thy calm soul, Lorraine; And, from the deeps of Raphael, rose Celestial Love again.
In pomp, which his own pomp recalls, The haggard owner sees Thy cloth of gold and banquet halls, Thou stately Veronese!
While, cold as if they scorn'd to hail Creations not their own, The Gods of Greece stand marble-pale Around the Thunderer's throne.
There, Hebe brims the urn of gold; There, Hermes treads the skies; There, ever in the Serpent's fold, Laocoon deathless dies.
There, startled from her mountain rest, Young Dian turns to draw The arrowy death that waits the breast Her slumber fail'd to awe.
There, earth subdued by dauntless deeds, And life's large labours done, Stands, sad as Worth with mortal meeds, Alcmena's mournful son.[B]
They gaze upon the fading form With mute immortal eyes;-- Here, clay that waits the hungry worm; There, children of the skies.
Then slowly as he totter'd by, The old Man, unresign'd, Sigh'd forth: "Alas! and must I die, And leave such life behind?
"The Beautiful, from which I part, Alone defies decay!" Still, while he sigh'd, the eternal Art Smiled down upon the clay.
And as he waved the feeble hand, And crawl'd unto the porch, He saw the Silent Genius stand With the extinguish'd torch!
The world without, for ever yours, Ye stern remorseless Three; What, from that changeful world, secures Calm Immortality?
Nay, soon or late decays, alas! Or canvass, stone, or scroll; From all material forms must pass To forms afresh, the soul.
'Tis but in that which doth create, Duration can be sought; A worm can waste the canvass;--Fate Ne'er swept from Time, a Thought.
Lives Phidias in his works alone?-- His Jove returns to air: But wake one godlike shape from stone, And Phidian thought is there!
Blot out the Iliad from the earth, Still Homer's thought would fire Each deed that boasts sublimer worth, And each diviner lyre.
Like light, connecting star to star, Doth Thought transmitted run;-- Rays that to earth the nearest are, Have longest left the sun.
The Parcae.--Leaf the Third.
ANDRE CHENIER.
FAREWELL TO THE BEAUTIFUL, WITHIN.
"Andre Chenier, the original of whatever is truest to nature and genuine passion, in the modern poetry of France, died by the guillotine, July 27, 1794. In ascending the scaffold, he cried, 'To die so young!' 'And there was something here!' he added, striking his forehead, not in the fear of death, but the despair of genius!"--See THIERS, vol. iv. p. 83.
Within the prison's dreary girth, The dismal night, before That morn on which the dungeon Earth Shall wall the soul no more,
There stood serenest images Where doomed Genius lay, The ever young Uranides Around the Child of Clay.
On blacken'd walls and rugged floors Shone cheerful, thro' the night, The stars--like beacons from the shores Of the still Infinite.
From Ida to the Poet's cell The Pain-beguilers stole; Apollo tuned his silver shell And Hebe brimm'd the bowl.
To grace those walls he needed nought That tint or stone bestows; Creation kindled from his thought: He call'd--and gods arose.
The visions Poets only know Upon the captive smiled, As bright within those walls of woe As on the sunlit child;
He saw the nameless, glorious things Which youthful dreamers see, When Fancy first with murmurous wings O'ershadows bards to be;
Those forms to life spiritual given By high creative hymn; From music born--as from their heaven Are born the Seraphim.[C]
Forgetful of the coming day, Upon the dungeon floor He sate to count, poor child of clay, The wealth of genius o'er;
To count the gems, as yet unwrought, But found beneath the soil; The bright discoveries claim'd by thought, As future crowns for toil.
He sees The Work his breath should warm To life, from out the air: The Shape of Love his soul should form, Then leave its birthright there!
He sees the new Immortal rise From her melodious sea; The last descendant of the skies For man to bend the knee--
He sees himself within your shrine O hero gods of Fame! And hears the praise that makes divine The human holy name.
True to the hearts of men shall chime The song their lips repeat; When heroes chant the strain, sublime; When lovers breathe it, sweet.
Lo, from the brief delusion given, He starts, as through the bars Gleams wan the dawn that scares from Heaven And Thought alike--its stars.
Hark to the busy tramp below! The jar of iron doors! The gaoler's heavy footfall slow Along the funeral floors!
The murmur of the crowd that round The human shambles throng; That muffled sullen thunder-sound-- The Death-cart grates along!
"Alas, so soon!--and must I die," He groan'd forth unresign'd; "Flit like a cloud athwart the sky, And leave no wrack behind!
"And yet my Genius speaks to me; The Pythian fires my brain; And tells me what my life should be; A Prophet--and in vain!
"O realm more wide, from clime to clime, Than ever Caesar sway'd; O conquests in that world of time My grand desire survey'd!"--
Blood-red upon his loathing eyes Now glares the gaoler's torch: "Come forth, the day is in the skies, The Death-cart at the porch!"
Pass on!--to thee the Parcae give The fairest lot of all;-- In golden poet-dreams to live, And ere they fade--to fall!
The shrine that longest guards a Name Is oft an early tomb; The Poem most secure of fame Is--some wrong'd poet's doom!
The Parcae.--Leaf the Fourth.
MARY STUART AND HER MOURNER.
"Mary Stuart perished at the age of forty-four years and two months. Her remains were taken from her weeping servants, and a green cloth, torn in haste from an old billiard table, was flung over her once beautiful form. Thus it remained unwatched and unattended, except by a poor little lap-dog, which could not be induced to quit the body of its mistress. This faithful little animal was found dead two days afterwards; and the circumstance made such an impression even on the hard-hearted minister of Elizabeth, that it was mentioned in the official despatches."
MRS. JAMIESON'S Female Sovereigns--Mary Queen of Scots.
The axe its bloody work had done; The corpse neglected lay; This peopled world could spare not one To watch beside the clay.
The fairest work from Nature's hand That e'er on mortals shone, A sunbeam stray'd from fairy land To fade upon a throne;--
The Venus of the Tomb[D] whose form Was destiny and death; The Siren's voice that stirr'd a storm In each melodious breath;--
Such was, what now by fate is hurl'd To rot, unwept, away. A star has vanish'd from the world; And none to miss the ray!
Stern Knox, that loneliness forlorn A harsher truth might teach To royal pomps, than priestly scorn To royal sins can preach!
No victims now that lip can make! That hand how powerless now! O God! and what a King--but take A bauble from the brow?
The world is full of life and love; The world methinks might spare From millions, one to watch above The dust of monarchs there.
And not one human eye!--yet lo What stirs the funeral pall? What sound--it is not human woe-- Wails moaning through the hall?
Close by the form mankind desert One thing a vigil keeps; More near and near to that still heart It wistful, wondering creeps.
It gazes on those glazed eyes, It hearkens for a breath-- It does not know that kindness dies, And love departs from death.
It fawns as fondly as before Upon that icy hand. And hears from lips, that speak no more, The voice that can command.
To that poor fool, alone on earth, No matter what had been The pomp, the fall, the guilt, the worth, The Dead was still a Queen.
With eyes that horror could not scare, It watch'd the senseless clay:-- Crouch'd on the breast of Death, and there Moan'd its fond life away.
And when the bolts discordant clash'd, And human steps drew nigh, The human pity shrunk abash'd Before that faithful eye;
It seem'd to gaze with such rebuke On those who could forsake; Then turn'd to watch once more the look, And strive the sleep to wake.
They raised the pall--they touch'd the dead, A cry, and both were still'd,-- Alike the soul that Hate had sped, The life that Love had kill'd.
Semiramis of England, hail! Thy crime secures thy sway: But when thine eyes shall scan the tale Those hireling scribes convey;
When thou shalt read, with late remorse, How one poor slave was found Beside thy butcher'd rival's corse, The headless and discrown'd;
Shall not thy soul foretell thine own Unloved, expiring hour, When those who kneel around the throne Shall fly the falling tower;
When thy great heart shall silent break, When thy sad eyes shall strain Through vacant space, one thing to seek One thing that loved--in vain?
Though round thy parting pangs of pride Shall priest and noble crowd; More worth the grief, that mourn'd beside Thy victim's gory shroud!
The Parcae.--Leaf the Fifth.
THE LAST DAYS OF ELIZABETH.
"Her delight is to sit in the dark, and sometimes, with shedding tears, to bewail Essex."--Contemporaneous Correspondence.
"She refused all consolation; few words she uttered, and they were all expressive of some hidden grief which she cared not to reveal. But sighs and groans were the chief vent which she gave to her despondency, and which, though they discovered her sorrows, were never able to ease or assuage them. Ten days and nights she lay upon the carpet leaning on cushions which her maids brought her," &c.--HUME.
I.
Rise from thy bloody grave, Thou soft Medusa of the Fated Line[F] Whose evil beauty look'd to death the brave;-- Discrowned Queen, around whose passionate shame Terror and Grief the palest flowers entwine, That ever veil'd the ruins of a Name With the sweet parasites of song divine!-- Arise, sad Ghost, arise, And if Revenge outlive the Tomb, Behold the Doomer brought to doom! Lo, where thy mighty Murderess lies, The sleepless couch--the sunless room,-- Through the darkness darkly seen Rests the shadow of a Queen; Ever on the lawns below Flit the shadows to and fro, Quick at dawn, and slow at noon, Halving midnight with the moon: In the palace, still and dun, Rests that shadow on the floor; All the changes of the sun Move that shadow nevermore.
II.
Yet oft she turns from face to face, A keen and wistful gaze, As if the memory seeks to trace The sign of some lost dwelling-place Beloved in happier days;-- Ah, what the clue supplies In the cold vigil of a hireling's eyes? Ah, sad in childless age to weep alone, Look round and find no grief reflect our own!-- O Soul, thou speedest to thy rest away, But not upon the pinions of the dove; When death draws nigh, how miserable they Who have outlived all love! As on the solemn verge of Night Lingers a weary Moon, Thou wanest last of every glorious light That bathed with splendour thy majestic noon:-- The stately stars that clustering o'er the isle Lull'd into glittering rest the subject sea;-- Gone the great Masters of Italian wile, False to the world beside, but true to thee!-- Burleigh, the subtlest builder of thy fame,-- The serpent craft of winding Walsingham;-- They who exalted yet before thee bow'd: And that more dazzling chivalry--the Band That made thy Court a Faery Land, In which thou wert enshrined to reign alone-- The Gloriana of the Diamond Throne;-- All gone,--and left thee sad amidst the cloud.
III.
To their great sires, to whom thy youth was known, Who from thy smile, as laurels from the sun Drank the immortal greenness of renown, Succeeds the cold lip-homage scantly won From the new race whose hearts already bear The Wise-man's offerings to th' unworthy Heir. Watching the glass in which the sands run low,-- Hovers keen Cecil with his falcon eyes, And musing Bacon[F] bends his marble brow.-- But deem not fondly there To weep the fate or pour th' averting prayer Attend those solemn spies! Lo, at the Regal Gate The impatient couriers wait; To speed from hour to hour the nice account That registers the grudged unpitied sighs Vexing the friendless void, before The Stuart's step shall reeling mount Tudor's steep throne, red with his Mother's gore!
IV.
O piteous mockery of all pomp thou art, Poor Child of Clay, worn out with toil and years! As, layer by layer, the granite of the heart Dissolving, melteth to the weakest tears That ever Village Maiden shed above The grave that robb'd her quiet world of love.
Ten days and nights upon that floor Those weary limbs have lain; And every hour has added more Of heaviness to pain. As gazing into dismal air She sees the headless phantom there, The victim round whose image twined The last wild love of womankind; That lightning flash'd from stormy hearts, Which now reveals the deeps of Heaven, And now remorseless, earthward darts, Rives, and expires on what its stroke hath riven!
'Twere sad to see from those stern eyes Th' unheeded anguish feebly flow; And hear the broken word that dies In moanings faint and low;-- But sadder still to mark the while, The vacant stare--the marble smile, And think, that goal of glory won. How slight a shade between The idiot moping in the sun And England's giant Queen![G]
V.
Call back the joyous Past! Lo, England white-robed for a holyday! While, choral to the clarion's kingly blast, Shout peals on shout along the Virgin's way, As through the swarming streets rolls on the long array. Mary is dead!--Look from your fire-won homes, Exulting Martyrs!--on the mount shall rest Truth's ark at last! th' avenging Lutheran comes And clasps THE BOOK ye died for to her breast![H] With her, the flower of all the Land, The high-born gallants ride, And ever nearest of the band, With watchful eye and ready hand, Young Dudley's form of pride![I] Ah, ev'n in that exulting hour, Love half allures the soul from Power,-- To that dread brow in bending down Throbs up, beneath the manlike crown, The woman's heart wild beating, While steals the whisper'd worship, paid Not to the Monarch, but the Maid, Through tromps and stormy greeting.
VI.
Call back the gorgeous Past! The lists are set, the trumpets sound, Still as the stars, when to the breeze Sway the proud crests of stately trees, Bright eyes, from tier on tier around, Look down, where on its famous ground Murmurs and moves the bristling life Of antique Chivalry! "Forward!"[J]--the signal word is given-- Like cloud on cloud by tempest driven; Steel lightens, and arm'd thunders close! How plumes descend in flakes of snows; How the ground reels, as reels a sea, Beneath the inebriate rapture-strife Of jocund Chivalry! Who is the Victor of the Day? Thou of the delicate form and golden hair And Manhood glorious in its midst of May;-- Thou who, upon thy shield of argent, bearest The bold device, "The Loftiest is the Fairest!" As bending low thy stainless crest, "The Vestal throned by the West" Accords the old Provencal crown Which blends her own with thy renown;-- Arcadian Sidney--Nursling of the Muse, Flower of divine Romance,[K] whose bloom was fed By daintiest Helicon's most silver dews, Alas! how soon thy lovely leaves were shed-- Thee lost, no more were Grace and Force united, Grace but some flaunting Buckingham unmann'd, And Force but crush'd what Freedom vainly righted-- Behind, lo Cromwell looms, and dusks the land With the swart shadow of his giant hand.
VII.
Call back the Kingly Past! Where, bright and broadening to the main, Rolls on the scornful River,-- Stout hearts beat high on Tilbury's plain,-- Our Marathon for ever! No breeze above, but on the mast The pennon shook as with the blast. Forth from the cloud the day-god strode; Flash'd back from steel, the splendour glow'd,-- Leapt the loud joy from Earth to Heaven, As through the ranks asunder riven, The Warrior-Woman rode! Hark, thrilling through the armed Line The martial accents ring, "Though mine the Woman's form--yet mine, "The Heart of England's King!"[L] Woe to the Island and the Maid! The Pope has preach'd the New Crusade,[M] His sons have caught the fiery zeal; The Monks are merry in Castile; Bold Parma on the Main; And through the deep exulting sweep The Thunder-Steeds of Spain.-- What meteor rides the sulphurous gale? The Flames have caught the giant sail! Fierce Drake is grappling prow to prow; God and St. George for Victory now! Death in the Battle and the Wind-- Carnage before and Storm behind-- Wild shrieks are heard above the hurtling roar By Orkney's rugged strands, and Erin's ruthless shore. Joy to the Island and the Maid! Pope Sextus wept the Last Crusade! His sons consumed before his zeal,-- The Monks are woeful in Castile; Your Monument the Main, The glaive and gale record your tale, Ye Thunder-Steeds of Spain!
VIII.
Turn from the idle Past; Its lonely ghost thou art! Yea, like a ghost, whom charms to earth detain (When, with the dawn, its kindred phantom train Glide into peaceful graves)--to dust depart Thy shadowy pageants; and the day unblest, Seems some dire curse that keeps thee from thy rest. Yet comfort, comfort to thy longing woe, Thou wistful watcher by the dreary portal; Now when most human, since most feeble, know, That in the Human struggles the Immortal.
Flash'd from the steel of the descending shears, Oft sacred light illumes the parting soul; And our last glimpse along the woof of years, First reads the scheme that disinvolves the whole. Yet, then, recall the Past! Is reverence not the child of sympathy? To feel for Greatness we must hear it sigh: On mortal brows those halos longest last Which blend for one the rays that verge from all. Few reign, few triumph; millions love and grieve: Of grief and love let some high memory leave One mute appeal to life, upon the stone-- That tomb from Time shall votive rites receive When History doubts what ghost once fill'd a throne. So,--indistinct while back'd by sunlit skies-- But large and clear against the midnight pall, Thy human outline awes our human eyes. Place, place, ye meaner royalties below, For Nature's holiest--Womanhood and Woe!
Let not vain youth deride the age that still Loves as the young,--loves on unto the last; Grandest the heart when grander than the will-- Bow we before the soul, which through the Past, Turns no vain glance towards fading heights of Pride, But strains its humbled tearful gaze to see, Love and Remorse--near Immortality, And by the yawning Grave, stand side by side.
The Parcae.--Leaf the Sixth.
CROMWELL'S DREAM.
The conception of this Ode originated in a popular tradition of Cromwell's earlier days. It is thus strikingly related by Mr. Forster, in his very valuable Life of Cromwell:--"He laid himself down, too fatigued in hope for sleep, when suddenly the curtains of his bed were slowly withdrawn by a gigantic figure, which bore the aspect of a woman, and which, gazing at him silently for a while, told him that he should, before his death, be the greatest man in England. He remembered when he told the story, and the recollection marked the current of his thoughts, that the figure had not made mention of the word King." Alteration has been made in the scene of the vision, and the age of Cromwell.
I.
The Moor spread wild and far, In the sharp whiteness of a wintry shroud; Midnight yet moonless; and the winds ice-bound: And a grey dusk--not darkness--reign'd around, Save where the phantom of a sudden star Peer'd o'er some haggard precipice of cloud:-- Where on the wold, the triple pathway cross'd, A sturdy wanderer wearied, lone, and lost, Paused and gazed round; a dwarf'd but aged yew O'er the wan rime its gnome-like shadow threw; The spot invited, and by sleep oppress'd, Beneath the boughs he laid him down to rest. A man of stalwart limbs and hardy frame, Meet for the ruder time when force was fame, Youthful in years--the features yet betray Thoughts rarely mellow'd till the locks are grey: Round the firm lips the lines of solemn wile Might warn the wise of danger in the smile; But the blunt aspect spoke more sternly still That craft of craft--THE STUBBORN WILL: That which,--let what may betide-- Never halts nor swerves aside; From afar its victim viewing, Slow of speed, but sure-pursuing; Through maze, up mount, still hounding on its way, Till grimly couch'd beside the conquer'd prey!
II.
The loftiest fate will longest lie In unrevealing sleep; And yet unknown the destined race, Nor yet his Soul had walk'd with Grace; Still, on the seas of Time Drifted the ever-careless prime,-- But many a blast that o'er the sky All idly seems to sweep,-- Still while it speeds, may spread the seeds The toils of autumn reap:-- And we must blame the soil, and not the wind, If hurrying passion leave no golden grain behind.
III.
Seize--seize--seize![N] Bind him strong in the chain, On his heart, on his brain, Clasp the links of the evil Sleep! Seize--seize--seize-- Ye fiends that dimly sweep Up from the Stygian deep, Where Death sits watchful by his brother's side! Ye pale Impalpables, that are Shadows of Truths afar, Appearing oft to warn, but ne'er to guide,-- Hover around the calm, disdainful Fates, Reveal the woof through which the spindle gleams:-- Open, ye Ebon gates! Darken the moon--O Dreams!
Seize--seize--seize-- Bind him strong in the chain, On his heart, on his brain, Clasp the links of the evil Sleep!
Awakes or dreams he still? His eyes are open with a glassy stare, On the fix'd brow the large drops gather chill, And horror, like a wind, stirs through the lifted hair. Before him stands the Thing of Dread-- A giant shadow motionless and pale! As those dim Lemur-Vapours that exhale From the rank grasses rotting o'er the Dead, And startle midnight with the mocking show Of the still, shrouded bones that sleep below-- So the wan image which the Vision bore Was outlined from the air, no more Than served to make the loathing sense a bond Between the world of life, and grislier worlds beyond.
IV.
"Behold!" the Shadow said, and lo, Where the blank heath had spread, a smiling scene; Soft woodlands sloping from a village green,[O] And, waving to blue Heaven, the happy cornfields glow: A modest roof, with ivy cluster'd o'er, And Childhood's busy mirth beside the door. But, yonder, sunset sleeping on the sod, Bow Labour's rustic sons in solemn prayer; And, self-made teacher of the truths of God, The Dreamer sees the Phantom-Cromwell there! "Art thou content, of these the greatest Thou," Murmur'd the Fiend, "the Master and the Priest?" A sullen anger knit the Dreamer's brow, And from his scornful lips the words came slow, "The greatest of the hamlet, Demon, No!" Loud laugh'd the Fiend--then trembled through the sky, Where haply angels watch'd, a warning sigh;-- And darkness swept the scene, and golden Quiet ceased.
V.
"Behold!" the Shadow said--a hell-born ray Shoots through the Night, up-leaps the unholy Day, Spring from the earth the Dragon's armed seed, The ghastly squadron wheels, and neighs the spectre-steed. Unnatural sounded the sweet Mother-tongue, As loud from host to host the English war-cry rung; Kindred with kindred blent in slaughter show The dark phantasma of the Prophet-Woe! A gay and glittering band! Apollo's lovelocks in the crest of Mars-- Light-hearted Valour, laughing scorn to scars-- A gay and glittering band, Unwitting of the scythe--the lilies of the land! Pale in the midst, that stately squadron boasts A princely form, a mournful brow; And still, where plumes are proudest, seen, With sparkling eye and dauntless mien, The young Achilles[P] of the hosts. On rolls the surging war--and now Along the closing columns ring-- "Rupert" and "Charles"--"The Lady of the Crown,"[Q] "Down with the Roundhead Rebels, down!" "St. George and England's king."
A stalwart and a sturdy band,-- Whose souls of sullen zeal Are made, by the Immortal Hand Invulnerable steel! A kneeling host,--a pause of prayer, A single voice thrills through the air "They come. Up, Ironsides! For TRUTH and PEACE unsparing smite! Behold the accursed Amalekite!" The Dreamer's heart beat high and loud, For, calmly through the carnage-cloud, The scourge and servant of the Lord, This hand the Bible--that the sword-- The Phantom-Cromwell rides!
A lurid darkness swallows the array, One moment lost--the darkness rolls away, And, o'er the slaughter done, Smiles, with his eyes of love, the setting Sun; Death makes our foe our brother; And, meekly, side by side, Sleep scowling Hate and sternly smiling Pride, On the kind breast of Earth, the quiet Mother! Lo, where the victor sweeps along, The Gideon of the gory throng, Beneath his hoofs the harmless dead-- The aureole on his helmed head-- Before him steel-clad Victory bending, Around, from earth to heaven ascending The fiery incense of triumphant song. So, as some orb, above a mighty stream Sway'd by its law, and sparkling in its beam,-- A power apart from that tempestuous tide, Calm and aloft, behold the Phantom-Conqueror ride!
"Art thou content--of these the greatest Thou, Hero and Patriot?" murmur'd then the Fiend. The unsleeping Dreamer answer'd, "Tempter, nay, My soul stands breathless on the mountain's brow And looks beyond!" Again swift darkness screen'd The solemn Chieftain and the fierce array, And armed Glory pass'd, like happier Peace, away.
VI.
He look'd again, and saw A chamber with funereal sables hung, Wherein there lay a ghastly, headless thing That once had been a king-- And by the corpse a living man, whose doom, Had both been left to Nature's gradual law, Were riper for the garner-house of gloom.[R] Rudely beside the gory clay were flung The Norman sceptre and the Saxon crown;[S] So, after some imperial Tragedy August alike with sorrow and renown, We smile to see the gauds that moved our awe, Purple and orb, in dusty lumber lie,-- Alas, what thousands, on the stage of Time, Envied the baubles, and revered the Mine!
Placed by the trunk--with long and whitening hair By dark-red gouts besprent, the sever'd head Up to the Gazer's musing eyes, the while, Look'd with its livid brow and stony smile. On that sad scene, his gaze the Dreamer fed, Familiar both the Living and the Dead; Terror, and hate, and strife concluded there, Calm in his six-feet realm the monarch lay; And by the warning victim's mangled clay The Phantom-Cromwell smiled,--and bending down With shadowy fingers toy'd about the shadowy crown. "Art thou content at last?--a Greater thou Than one to whom the loftiest bent the knee. First in thy fierce Republic of the Free, Avenger and Deliverer?"
"Fiend," replied The Dreamer, "who shall palter with the tide?-- Deliverer! Pilots who the vessel save Leave not the helm while winds are on the wave. THE FUTURE is the Haven of THE NOW!" "True," quoth the Fiend--Again the darkness spread, And night gave back to air the Doomsman and the Dead!
VII.
"See," cried the Fiend;--he views A lofty Senate stern with many a form Not unfamiliar to the earlier strife; Knit were the brows--and passion flush'd the hues, And all were hush'd!--that, hush which is in life As in the air, prophetic of a storm.
Uprose a shape[T] with dark bright eye; It spoke--and at the word The Dreamer breathed an angry sigh; And starting--clutch'd his sword; An instinct bade him hate and fear That unknown shape--as if a foe were near-- For, mighty in that mien of thoughtful youth, Spoke Fraud's most deadly foe--a soul on fire with Truth; A soul without one stain Save England's hallowing tears;--the sad and starry Vane. There enter'd on that conclave high A solitary Man! And rustling through the conclave high A troubled murmur ran; A moment more--loud riot all-- With pike and morion gleam'd the startled hall: And there, where, since the primal date Of Freedom's glorious morn, The eternal People solemn sate, The People's Champion spat his ribald scorn! Dark moral to all ages!--Blent in one The broken fasces and the shatter'd throne; The deed that damns immortally is done; And FORCE, the Cain of Nations-reigns alone! The veil is rent--the crafty soul lies bare! "Behold," the Demon cried, "the Future Cromwell, there! Art thou content, on earth the Greatest thou, APOSTATE AND USURPER?"--From his rest The Dreamer started with a heaving breast, The better angels of the human heart Not dumb to his,--The Hell-Born laugh'd aloud, And o'er the Evil Vision rush'd the cloud!
[A] Talma.
[B] Certainly the sculptor of the Farnese Hercules well conceived that ideal character of the demi-god, which makes Aristotle (Prob. 30) class the grand Personification of Labour amongst the Melancholy. It is the union of mournful repose with colossal power, which gives so profound a moral sentiment to that masterpiece of art.
[C] "Aus den Saiten, wie aus ihren Himmeln, Neugebor'ne Seraphim."--Schiller.
[D] Libitina, the Venus who presided over funerals.
[E] Mary Stuart--"the soft Medusa" is an expression strikingly applied to her in her own day.
[F] See the correspondence maintained by Francis Bacon and Robert Cecil (the sons of Elizabeth's most faithful friends) with the Scottish court, during the Queen's last illness.
[G] "It was after labouring for nearly three weeks under a morbid melancholy, which brought on a stupor not unmixed with some indications of a disordered fancy, that the Queen expired."--_Aikin's translation of a Latin letter (author unknown) to Edmund Lambert._
Robert Carey, who was admitted to an interview with Elizabeth in her last illness, after describing the passionate anguish of her sighs, observes, "that in all his lifetime before, he never knew her fetch a sigh but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded." Yet this Robert Carey, the well-born mendicant of her bounty, was the first whose eager haste and joyous countenance told James that the throne of the Tudors was at last vacant.
[H] "When she (Elizabeth) was conducted through London amidst the joyful acclamations of her subjects, a boy, who personated Truth, was let down from one of the triumphal arches, and presented to her a copy of the Bible. She received the book with the most gracious deportment, placed it next her bosom," &c.--HUME.
[I] Robert Dudley, afterwards the Leicester of doubtful fame, attended Elizabeth in her passage to the Tower. The streets, as she passed along, were spread with the finest gravel; banners and pennons, hangings of silk, of velvet, of cloth of gold, were suspended from the balconies; musicians and singers were stationed amidst the populace, as she rode along in her purple robes, preceded by her heralds, &c.
[J] The customary phrase was "Laissez aller."
[K] "The Life of Sir Philip Sidney," as Campbell finely expresses it, "was Poetry put in action." With him died the Provencal and the Norman--the Ideal of the Middle Ages.
[L] "I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too."
She rode bareheaded through the ranks, a page bearing her helmet, mounted on a war-horse, clad in steel, and wielding a general's truncheon in her hand.
[M] "Sextus Quintus, the present Pope, famous for his capacity and his tyranny, had published a crusade against England, and had granted plenary indulgences to every one engaged in the present invasion."--HUME. This Pope was, nevertheless, Elizabeth's admirer as well as foe, and said, "If a son could be born from us two, he would be master of the world."
[N] [Greek: Laze, laze, laze, laze] (seize, seize, seize).--AEschyl. Eumen., 125.
[O] The farm of St. Ives, where Cromwell spent three years, which he afterwards recalled with regret--though not unafflicted with dark hypochondria and sullen discontent. Here, as Mr. Forster impressively observes, "in the tenants that rented from him, in the labourers that served under him, he sought to sow the seeds of his after troop of Ironsides.... All the famous doctrines of his later and more celebrated years were tried and tested in the little farm of St. Ives.... Before going to their field-work in the morning, they (his servants) knelt down with their master in the touching equality of prayer; in the evening they shared with him again the comfort and exaltation of divine precepts."--FORSTER'S Cromwell.
[P] Prince Rupert.
[Q] Henrietta Maria was the popular battle-cry of the Cavaliers.
[R] The reader will recall the well-known story of Cromwell opening the coffin of Charles with the hilt of a private soldier's sword, and, after gazing on the body for some time, observing calmly, that it seemed made for long life,--
"Had Nature been his executioner, He would have outlived me!"--Cromwell, a MS. tragedy.
[S] King Alfred's crown was actually sold after the execution of Charles the First.
[T] When Cromwell came down (leaving his musketeers without the door) to dissolve the Long Parliament, Vane was in the act of urging, through the last stage, the Bill that would have saved the republic--See Forster's spirited account of this scene, Life of Vane, p. 152.
* * * * *
KING ARTHUR.
Preface
In prefixing to this poem a brief explanation of its design, I feel myself involuntarily compelled to refer to the more popular distinctions of Epic Fable, though I do not thereby presume to arrogate to my work that title of Epic which Time alone has the prerogative to confer.
Pope has, accurately and succinctly, defined the three cardinal divisions of Epic Fable to consist in the Probable, the Allegorical, and the Marvellous. For the Probable is indispensable to the vital interest of the action, the Marvellous is the obvious domain of creative invention, and the Allegorical is the most pleasing mode of insinuating some subtler truth, or clothing some profounder moral.
I accept these divisions, because they conform to the simplest principles of rational criticism; and though their combination does not form an Epic, it serves at least to amplify the region and elevate the objects of Romance.
It has been my aim so to blend these divisions, that each may harmonize with the other, and all conduce to the end proposed from the commencement. I have admitted but little episodical incident, and none that does not grow out of what Pope terms "the platform of the story." For the marvellous agencies I have not presumed to make direct use of that Divine Machinery which the war of the Christian Principle with the form of Heathenism might have suggested to the sublime daring of Milton, had he prosecuted his original idea of founding an heroic poem upon the legendary existence of Arthur;--and, on the other hand, the Teuton Mythology, however imaginative and profound, is too unfamiliar and obscure, to permit its employment as an open and visible agency;--such reference to it as occurs, is therefore rather admitted as an appropriate colouring to the composition, than made an integral part of the materials of the canvas: and, not to ask from the ordinary reader an erudition I should have no right to expect, the reference so made is in the simplest form, and disentangled from the necessity of other information than a few brief notes will suffice to afford.
In taking my subject from chivalrous romance, I take, then, those agencies from the Marvellous which chivalrous romance naturally and familiarly affords--the Fairy, the Genius, the Enchanter: not wholly, indeed, in the precise and literal spirit with which our nursery tales receive those creations of Fancy through the medium of French Fabliaux, but in the larger significations by which, in their conceptions of the Supernatural, our fathers often implied the secrets of Nature. For the Romance from which I borrow is the Romance of the North--a Romance, like the Northern mythology, full of typical meaning and latent import. The gigantic remains of symbol-worship are visible amidst the rude fables of the Scandinavians, and what little is left to us of the earlier and more indigenous literature of the Cymrians, is characterized by a mysticism profound with parable. This fondness for an interior or double meaning is the most prominent attribute in that Romance popularly called The Gothic, the feature most in common with all creations that bear the stamp of the Northern fancy: we trace it in the poems of the Anglo-Saxons; it returns to us, in our earliest poems after the Conquest; it does not originate in the Oriental genius (immemorially addicted to Allegory), but it instinctively appropriates all that Saraconic invention can suggest to the more sombre imagination of the North--it unites to the Serpent of the Edda the flying Griffin of Arabia, the Persian Genius to the Scandinavian Trold,--and wherever it accepts a marvel, it seeks to insinuate a type. This peculiarity, which distinguishes the spiritual essence of the modern from the sensual character of ancient poetry, especially the Roman, is visible wherever a tribe allied to the Goth, the Frank, or the Teuton, carries with it the deep mysteries of the Christian faith. Even in sunny Provence it transfuses a subtler and graver moral into the lays of the joyous troubadour,[A]--and weaves "The Dance of Death" by the joyous streams, and through the glowing orange-groves, of Spain. Onwards, this under-current of meaning flowed, through the various phases of civilization:--it pervaded alike the popular Satire and the dramatic Mystery;--and, preserving its thoughtful calm amidst all the stirring passions that agitated mankind in the age subsequent to the Reformation, not only suffused the luxuriant fancy of the dreamy Spenser, but communicated to the practical intellect of Shakspere that subtle and recondite wisdom which seems the more inexhaustible the more it is examined, and suggests to every new inquirer some new problem in the philosophy of Human Life. Thus, in taking from Northern Romance the Marvellous, we are most faithful to the genuine character of that Romance, when we take with the Marvellous its old companion, the Typical or Allegorical. But these form only two divisions of the three which I have assumed as the components of the unity I seek to accomplish; there remains the Probable, which contains the Actual. To subject the whole poem to allegorical constructions would be erroneous, and opposed to the vital principle of a work of this kind, which needs the support of direct and human interest. The inner and the outer meaning of Fable should flow together, each acting on the other, as the thought and the action in the life of a man. It is true that in order clearly to interpret the action, we should penetrate to the thought. But if we fail of that perception, the action, though less comprehended, still impresses its reality on our senses, and make its appeal to our interest.
[A] Rien n'est plus commun dans la poesie provencale que l'allegorie; seulement elle est un jeu-d'esprit an lieu d'etre une action.... Une autre analogie me parait plus spoutanee qu'imitee--la poesie des troubadours qu'on suppose frivole, a souvent retracee des sentiments graves et touchants," &c.--VILLEMAIN, Tableau du Moyen Age.
I have thus sought to maintain the Probable through that chain of incident in which human agencies are employed, and through those agencies the direct action of the Poem is accomplished; while the Allegorical admits into the Marvellous the introduction of that subtler form of Truth, which if less positive than the Actual, is wider in its application, and ought to be more profound in its significance.
For the rest, it may perhaps be conceded that this poem is not without originality in the conception of its plot and the general treatment of its details. I am not aware of any previous romantic poem which it resembles in its main design, or in the character of its principal incidents;--and, though I may have incurred certain mannerisms of my own day, I yet venture to trust that, in the pervading form or style, the mind employed has been sufficiently in earnest to leave its own peculiar effigy and stamp upon the work. For the incidents narrated, I may, indeed, thank the nature of my subject, if many of them could scarcely fail to be new. The celebrated poets of chivalrous fable--Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, have given to their scenery the colourings of the West. The Great North from which Chivalry sprung--its polar seas, its natural wonders, its wild legends, its antediluvian remains--(wide fields for poetic description and heroic narrative)--have been, indeed, not wholly unexplored by poetry, but so little appropriated, that even after Tegner and Oehlenschlaeger, I dare to hope that I have found tracks in which no poet has preceded me, and over which yet breathes the native air of our National Romance.
For the Manners preserved through this poem, I naturally reject those which the rigid Antiquary would appropriate to the date of that Historical Arthur, of whom we know so little, and take those of the age in which the Arthur of Romance, whom we know so well, revived into fairer life at the breath of Minstrel and Fabliast. The anachronism of chivalrous manners and costume for the British chief and his Knighthood, is absolutely required by all our familiar associations. On the other hand, without affecting any precise accuracy in details, I have kept the country of the brave Prince of the Silures (or South Wales) somewhat more definitely in view, than has been done by the French Romance writers; while in portraying his Saxon foes, I have endeavoured to distinguish their separate nationality, without enforcing too violent a contrast between the rudeness of the heathen Teutons and the polished Christianity of the Cymrian Knighthood.[B]
[B] In the more historical view of the position of Arthur, I have, however, represented it such as it really appears to have been,--not as the sovereign of all Britain, and the conquering invader of Europe (according to the groundless fable of Geoffrey of Monmouth), but as the patriot Prince of South Wales, resisting successfully the invasion of his own native soil, and accomplishing the object of his career in preserving entire the nationality of his Welsh countrymen. In thus contracting his sphere of action to the bounds of rational truth, his dignity, both moral and poetic, is obviously enhanced. Represented as the champion of all Britain against the Saxons, his life would have been but a notorious and signal failure; but as the preserver of the Cymrian Nationality--of that part of the British population which took refuge in Wales, he has a claim to the epic glory of success.
It is for this latter reason that I have gone somewhat out of the strict letter of history, in the poetical licence by which the Mercians are represented as Arthur's principal enemies (though, properly speaking, the Mercian kingdom was not then founded): the alliance between the Mercian and the Welsh, which concludes the Poem--is at least not contrary to the spirit of History--since in very early periods such amicable bonds between the Welsh and the Mercians were contracted, and the Welsh, on the whole, were on better terms with those formidable borderers than with the other branches of the Saxon family.
May I be permitted to say a word as to the metre I have selected?--One advantage it has,--that while thoroughly English, and not uncultivated by the best of the elder masters, it has never been applied to a poem of equal length, and has not been made too trite and familiar, by the lavish employment of recent writers.[C] Shakspere has taught us its riches in the Venus and Adonis,--Spenser in The Astrophel,--Cowley has sounded its music amidst the various intonations of his irregular lyre. But of late years, if not wholly laid aside, it has been generally neglected for the more artificial and complicated Spenserian stanza, which may seem, at the first glance, to resemble it, but which to the ear is widely different in rhythm and construction.
[C] Southey has used it in the "Lay of the Laureate" and "The Poet's Pilgrimage,"--not his best-known and most considerable poems.
The reader may perhaps remember that Dryden has spoken with emphatic praise of the "quatrain, or stanza of four in alternate rhyme." He says indeed, "that he had ever judged it more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us." That metre, in its simple integrity, is comprised in the stanza selected, ending in the vigour and terseness of the rhyming couplet, with which, for the most part, the picture should be closed or the sense clenched. And whatever the imperfection of my own treatment of this variety in poetic form, I hazard a prediction that it will be ultimately revived into more frequent use, especially in narrative, and that its peculiar melodies of rhythm and cadence, as well as the just and measured facilities it affords to expression, neither too diffuse nor too restricted, will be recognized hereafter in the hands of a more accomplished master of our language.
Here ends all that I feel called upon to say respecting a Poem which I now acknowledge as the child of my most cherished hopes, and to which I deliberately confide the task to uphold, and the chance to continue, its father's name.
To this work, conceived first in the enthusiasm of youth, I have patiently devoted the best powers of my maturer years;--if it be worthless, it is at least the worthiest contribution that my abilities enable me to offer to the literature of my country; and I am unalterably convinced, that on this foundation I rest the least perishable monument of those thoughts and those labours which have made the life of my life.
E. BULWER LYTTON.
NOTE.
Of the notes inserted in the first edition I have retained only those which appeared to me absolutely necessary in explanation of the text. Among the notes omitted, was one appended to Book I., which defended at some length, and by numerous examples, two alleged peculiarities of style or mannerism:--I content myself here with stating briefly--
1st.--That in this work (as in my later ones generally) I have adopted what appears to me to have been the practice of Gray (judging from the editions of his Poems revised by himself), in the use of the capital initial. I prefix it--
First, to every substantive that implies a personification; thus War, Fame, &c, may in one line take the small initial as mere nouns, and in another line the capital initial, to denote that they are intended as personifications. This rule is clear--all personifications may be said to represent proper names: love, with a small l, means but a passion or affection; with a large L, Love represents some mythological power that presides over the passion or affection, and is as much a proper name as Venus, Eros, Camdeo, &c.
Secondly, I prefix the capital in those rare instances in which an adjective is used as a noun; as the Unknown, the Obscure,[D] &c. The capital here but answers the use of all printed inventions, in simplifying to the reader the author's meaning. If it be printed "he passed through the obscure," the reader naturally looks for the noun that is to follow the adjective; if the capital initial be used, as "He passed through the Obscure," the eye conveys to the mind without an effort the author's intention to use the adjective as a substantive.
[D] So Pope, "Spencer himself affects the Obsolete."
Thirdly, I prefix the capital initial where it serves to give an individual application to words that might otherwise convey only a general meaning; for instance--
"Or his who loves the madding Nymphs to lead O'er the Fork'd Hill.
that is, the Forked Hill, par emphasis,--Parnassus.
The use of the capital in these instances seems to me warranted by common sense, and the best authorities in the minor niceties of our language.
With regard to the other point referred to in the omitted note, I would observe, that I have deliberately used the freest licence in the rapid change of tense from past to present, or vice versa; as a privilege essential to all ease, spirit, force, and variety, in narrative poetry; and warranted by the uniform practice of Pope, Dryden, and Milton. I subjoin a few examples:--
"So prayed they, innocent, and to their thoughts Firm peace recover'd soon and wonted calm; On to their morning's rural work they haste, Among sweet dews and flowers, where any row Of fruit-trees over-woody reach'd too far Their pamper'd boughs, and needed hands to check Fruitless embraces; or they led the vine To wed the elm."
MILTON'S Paradise Lost, Book v., from line 209 to 216.
Here the tense changes three times.
Again:--
"Straight knew him all the bands Of angels under watch, and to his state And to his message high in honour rise, For on some message high they guess'd him bound."
Ibid., Book v., from line 288 to 291.
"Thus while he spoke, the virgin from the ground Upstarted fresh; already closed the wound; And unconcern'd for all she felt before, Precipitates her flight along the shore: The hell-hounds as ungorged with flesh and blood Pursue their prey and seek their wonted food; The fiend remounts his courser, mends his pace, And all the vision vanish'd from the place."
DRYDEN'S Theod. and Honor.
Pope--not without reason esteemed for verbal correctness and precision--far exceeds all in his lavish use of this privilege, as one or two quotations will amply suffice to show.
"She said, and to the steeds approaching near Drew from his seat the martial charioteer; The vigorous Power[E] the trembling car ascends, Fierce for revenge, and Diomed attends: The groaning axle bent beneath the load," &c.
POPE'S Iliad, Book v.
"Pierced through the shoulder first Decopis fell, Next Eunomus and Thoon sunk to Hell. Chersidamas, beneath the navel thrust, Falls prone to earth, and grasps the bloody dust; Cherops, the son of Hipposus, was near; Ulysses reach'd him with the fatal spear; But to his aid his brother Socus flies, Socus the brave, the generous, and the wise; Near as he drew the warrior thus began," &c.--Ibid.
"Behind, unnumber'd multitudes attend To flank the navy and the shores defend. Full on the front the pressing Trojans bear, And Hector first came towering to the war. Phoebus himself the rushing battle led, A veil of clouds involves his radiant head-- The Greeks expect the shock; the clamours rise From different parts and mingle in the skies Dire was the hiss of darts by heaven flung, And arrows, leaping from the bowstring, sung: These drink the life of generous warrior slain-- Those guiltless fall and thirst for blood in vain."
POPE'S Odyssey.
In the last quotation, brief as it is, the tense changes six times.
[E] In the corrupt and thoughtless mode of printing now in vogue, Power is of course printed with a small p, and the sense of the clearest of all English poets instantly becomes obscure.
"The vigorous power the trembling car ascends."
It is not till one has read the line twice over that one perceives "the power" means "the God," which, when printed "the Power," is obvious at a glance.
I ask indulgence of the reader if I take this occasion to add a very short comment upon three objections to this poem which have been brought under my notice:--
1--that it contains too much learning; 2--that it abounds too much with classical allusions; 3--that it indulges in rare words or archaisms.
I wish I could plead guilty to the honourable charge that it contains too much learning. A distinguished critic has justly observed, that the greatest obstacle which the modern writer attempting an Epic would have to encounter, would be, in his utter impossibility to attain the requisite learning. For an Epic ought to embody the whole learning of the period in which it is composed; and in the present age that is beyond the aspiration of the most erudite scholar or the profoundest philosopher. Still, any attempt at an Heroic Poem must at least comprise all the knowledge which the nature of the subject will admit, and we cannot but observe that the greatest narrative poems are those in which the greatest amount of learning is contained. Beyond all comparison the most learned poems that exist, in reference to the age in which they are composed, are the "Iliad" and "Odyssey;" next to them, the "Paradise Lost;" next to that, the "AEneid," in which the chief charm of the six latter books is in that "exquisite erudition," which Mueller so discriminately admires in Virgil; and after these, in point of learning, come perhaps the "Divine Comedy," and the "Fairy Queen." So that I have only to regret my deficiency of learning, rather than to apologize for the excess of it.
With regard to the classical allusions which I have permitted myself, I might shelter my practice under the mantles of our great masters in heroic song--Milton and Spenser; but in fact such admixture of the Classic with the Gothic muse is so essentially the characteristic of the minstrelsy of the middle ages, that without a liberal use of the same combination, I could not have preserved the colouring proper to my subject. And, indeed, I think the advice which one of the most elegant of modern critics has given to the painter, is equally applicable to the poet:--
"Non te igitur lateant antiqua numismata, gemmae, Quodque refert specie veterum post saecula mentem; Splendidior quippe ex illis assurgit imago Magnaque se rerum facies aperit meditanti."[F]
[F] DU FRESNOY de Arte Graphica.
Lastly, the moderate use of archaisms has always been deemed admissible in a narrative poem of some length, and rather perhaps an ornament than a defect, where the action of the poem is laid in remote antiquity. And I may add that not only the revival of old, but the invention of new words, if sparingly resorted to, is among the least contestable of poetic licences--a licence freely recognized by Horace, elaborately maintained by Dryden, and tacitly sanctioned, age after age, by the practice of every poet by whom our language has been enriched. I have certainly not abused either of these privileges, for while I have only adopted three new words of foreign derivation, I do not think there are a dozen words in the whole poem which can be considered archaisms: and in the three or four instances in which such words are not to be found in Milton, Shakspere, or Spenser, they are taken from the Saxon element of our language, and are still popularly used in the northern parts of the island, in which that Saxon element is more tenaciously preserved.
If these matters do not seem to the reader of much importance, in reference to a poem of this design and extent, I will own to him confidentially, that I incline to his opinion. But I have met with no objections to the general composition of this work, more serious than those to which the above remarks are intended to reply. Some objections to special lines or stanzas which appeared to me prompted by a juster criticism, or which occurred to myself in reperusal, I have carefully endeavoured in this edition to remove.
I. ARGUMENT
Opening--King Arthur keeps holiday in the Vale of Carduel--Pastimes-- Arthur's sentiments on life, love, and mortal change--The strange apparition--The King follows the Phantom into the forest--His return-- The discomfiture of his knights--the Court disperses--Night--The restless King ascends his battlements--His soliloquy--He is attracted by the light from the Wizard's tower--Merlin described--The King's narrative--The Enchanter's invocation--Morning--The Tilt-yard--Sports, knightly and national--Merlin's address to Arthur--The Three Labours enjoined--Arthur departs from Carduel--His absence explained by Merlin to the Council--Description of Arthur's three friends, Caradoc, Gawaine, and Lancelot--The especial love between Arthur and the last--Lancelot encounters Arthur--The parting of the friends.
Our land's first legends, love and knightly deeds, 1 And wondrous Merlin, and his wandering King, The triple labour, and the glorious meeds Sought in the world of Fable-land, I sing: Go forth, O Song, amidst the banks of old, And glide translucent over sands of gold.
Now is the time when, after sparkling showers, 2 Her starry wreaths the virgin jasmine weaves; Now murmurous bees return with sunny hours; And light wings rustic quick through glinting leaves; Music in every bough; on mead and lawn May lifts her fragrant altars to the dawn.
Now life, with every moment, seems to start 3 In air, in wave, on earth--above, below; And o'er her new-born children, Nature's heart Heaves with the gladness mothers only know; On poet times the month of poets shone-- May deck'd the world, and Arthur fill'd the throne.
Hard by a stream, amidst a pleasant vale 4 King Arthur held his careless holiday:-- The stream was blithe with many a silken sail, The vale with many a proud pavilion gay; While Cymri's dragon, from the Roman's hold,[1] Spread with calm wing o'er Carduel's domes of gold.
Dark, to the right, thick forests mantled o'er 5 A gradual mountain sloping to the plain; Whose gloom but lent to light a charm the more, As pleasure pleases most when neighbouring pain; And all our human joys most sweet and holy, Sport in the shadows cast from Melancholy.
Below that mount, along the glossy sward 6 Were gentle groups, discoursing gentle things; Or listening idly where the skilful bard Woke the sweet tempest of melodious strings; Or whispering love--I ween, less idle they, For love's the honey in the flowers of May.
Some plied in lusty race the glist'ning oar; 7 Some, noiseless, snared the silver-scaled prey; Some wreathed the dance along the level shore; And each was happy in his chosen way. Not by one shaft is Care, the hydra kill'd, So Mirth, determined, had his quiver fill'd.
Bright 'mid his blooming Court, like royal Morn 8 Girt with the Hours that lead the jocund Spring, When to its smile delight and flowers are born, And clouds are rose-hued,--shone the Cymrian King. Above that group, o'er-arch'd from tree to tree, Thick garlands hung their odorous canopy;
And in the midst of that delicious shade 9 Up sprang a sparkling fountain, silver-voiced, And the bee murmur'd and the breezes play'd: In their gay youth, the youth of May rejoiced-- And they in hers--as though that leafy hall Chimed the heart's laughter with the fountain's fall.
Propped on his easy arm, the King reclined, 10 And glancing gaily round the ring, quoth he-- "'Man,' say our sages, 'hath a fickle mind, And pleasures pall, if long enjoyed they be.' But I, methinks, like this soft summer-day, 'Mid blooms and sweets could wear the hours away;--
"Feel, in the eyes of Love, a cloudless sun, 11 Taste, in the breath of Love, eternal spring; Could age but keep the joys that youth has won, The human heart would fold its idle wing! If change there be in Fate and Nature's plan, Wherefore blame us?--it is in Time, not Man."
He spoke, and from the happy conclave there 12 Echo'd the murmur, "Time is but to blame:" Each knight glanced amorous on his chosen fair, And to the glance blush'd each assenting dame: But thought had dimm'd the smile in Arthur's eye, And the light speech was rounded by a sigh.
And while they murmur'd "Time is but to blame," 13 Right in the centre of the silken ring, Sudden stood forth (none marking whence it came), The gloomy shade of some Phantasmal Thing; It stood, dim-outlined in a sable shroud, And shapeless, as in noon-day hangs a cloud.
Hush'd was each lip, and every cheek was pale; 14 The stoutest heart beat tremulous and high: "Arise," it mutter'd from the spectral veil, "I call thee, King!" Then burst the wrathful cry, Feet found the earth, and ready hands the sword, And angry knighthood bristled round its lord.
But Arthur rose, and, waiving back the throng, 15 Fronted the Image with a dauntless brow: Then shrunk the Phantom, indistinct, along The unbending herbage, noiseless, dark, and slow; And, where the forest night at noonday made, Glided,--as from the dial glides the shade.
Gone;--but an ice-bound horror seemed to cling 16 To air; the revellers stood transfix'd to stone; While from amidst them, palely pass'd the King, Dragg'd by a will more royal than his own: Onwards he went; the invisible control Compell'd him, as a dream compels the soul.
They saw, and sought to stay him, but in vain, 17 They saw, and sought to speak, but voice was dumb: So Death some warrior from his armed train Plucks forth defenceless when his hour is come. He gains the wood; their sight the shadows bar, And darkness wraps him as the cloud a star.
Abruptly, as it came, the charm was past 18 That bound the circle: as from heavy sleep Starts the hush'd war-camp at the trumpet's blast, Fierce into life the voiceless revellers leap; Swift to the wood the glittering tumult springs, And through the vale the shrill BON-LEF-HER rings.[2]
From stream, from tent, from pastime near and far, 19 All press confusedly to the signal cry-- So from the ROCK OF BIRDS[3] the shout of war Sends countless wings in clamour through the sky-- The cause a word, the track a sign affords, And all the forest gleams with starry swords.
As on some stag the hunters single, gaze, 20 Gathering together, and from far, the herd, So round the margin of the woodland-maze Pale beauty circles, trembling if a bird Flutter a bough, or if, without a sound, Some leaf fall breezeless, eddying to the ground.
An hour or more had towards the western seas 21 Speeded the golden chariot of the day, When a white plume came glancing through the trees, The serried branches groaningly gave way, And, with a bound, delivered from the wood, Safe, in the sun-light, royal Arthur stood.
Who shall express the joy that aspect woke! 22 Some laugh'd aloud, and clapp'd their snowy hands: Some ran, some knelt, some turn'd aside and broke Into glad tears:--But all unheeding stands The King; and shivers in the glowing light; And his breast heaves as panting from a fight.
Yet still in those pale features, seen more near, 23 Speak the stern will, the soul to valour true; It shames man not to feel man's human fear, It shames man only if the fear subdue; And masking trouble with a noble guile, Soon the proud heart restores the kingly smile.
But no account could anxious love obtain, 24 Nor curious wonder, of the portents seen: "Bootless his search," he lightly said, "and vain As haply had the uncourteous summons been. Some mocking sport, perchance, of merry May." He ceased; and, shuddering, turn'd his looks away.
Now back, alas! less comely than they went, 25 Drop, one by one, the seekers from the chace, With mangled plumes and mantles dreadly rent;-- Sore bleed the Loves in Elphin's blooming face: Madoc, whose dancing scarcely brush'd the dew, O grief! limps, crippled by a stump of yew!
In short, such pranks had brier and bramble play'd, 26 And stock and stone, with vest, and face, and limb, That had some wretch denied the place was made For sprites, a sprite had soon been made of him! And sure, nought less than some demoniac power Had looks so sweet bewitch'd to lines so sour.
But shame and anger vanish'd when they saw 27 Him whose warm smile a life had well repaid, For noble hearts a noble chief can draw Into that circle where all self doth fade; Lost in the sea a hundred waters roll, And subject natures merge in one great soul.
Now once again quick question, brief reply, 28 "What saw, what heard the King?" Nay, gentles, what Saw or heard ye?"--"The forest and the sky, The rustling branches,"--"And the Phantom not? No more," quoth Arthur, "of a thriftless chace. For cheer so stinted brief may be the grace.
"But see, the sun descendeth down the west, 29 And graver cares to Carduel now recall: Gawaine, my steed;--Sweet ladies, gentle rest, And dreams of happy morrows to ye all." Now stirs the movement on the busy plain; To horse--to boat; and homeward winds the train.
O'er hill, down stream, the pageant fades away, 30 More and more faint the plash of dipping oar; Voices, and music, and the steed's shrill neigh, From the grey twilight dying more and more; Till over stream and valley, wide and far, Reign the sad silence and the solemn star.
Save where, like some true poet's lonely soul, 31 Careless who hears, sings on the unheeded fountain; Save where the thin clouds wanly, slowly roll O'er the mute darkness of the forest mountain-- Where, haply, busied with unholy rite, Still glides that Phantom, and dismays the night.
Sleep, the sole angel left of all below, 32 O'er the lull'd city sheds the ambrosial wreaths, Wet with the dews of Eden; Bliss and Woe Are equals, and the lowest slave that breathes Under the shelter of those healing wings, Reigns, half his life, in realms too fair for Kings.
Too fair those realms for Arthur; long he lay 33 An exiled suppliant at the gate of dreams, And vex'd, and wild, and fitful as a ray Quivering upon the surge of stormy streams; Thought broke in glimmering trouble o'er his breast, And found no billow where its beam could rest.[4]
He rose, and round him drew his ermined gown, 34 Pass'd from his chamber, wound the turret stair, And from his castle's steep embattled crown Bared his hot forehead to the fresh'ning air. How Silence, like a god's tranquillity, Fill'd with delighted peace the conscious sky!
Broad, luminous, serene, the sovereign moon 35 Shone o'er the roofs below, the lands afar-- The vale so joyous with the mirth at noon; The pastures virgin of the lust of war; And the still river shining as it flows, Calm as a soul on which the heavens repose.
"And must these pass from me and mine away?" 36 Murmur'd the monarch; "Must the mountain home Of those whose fathers, in a ruder day, With naked bosoms rush'd on shrinking Rome, Yield this last refuge from the ruthless wave, And what was Britain be the Saxon's slave?
"Why hymn our harps high music in our hall? 37 Doom'd is the tree whose fruit was noble deeds-- Where the axe spared the thunder-bolt must fall, And the wind scatter as it list the seeds! Fate breathes, and kingdoms wither at the breath; But kings are deathless, kingly if their death!"
He ceased, and look'd, with a defying eye, 38 Where the dark forest clothed the mount with awe Gazed, and then proudly turn'd;--when lo, hard by, From a lone turret in his keep, he saw Through the horn casement, a clear steadfast light, Lending meek tribute to the orbs of night.
And far, and far, I ween, that little ray 39 Sent its pure streamlet through the world of air: The wanderer oft, benighted on his way, Saw it, and paused in superstitious prayer; For well he knew the beacon and the tower, And the great Master of the spells of power.
There He, who yet in Fable's deathless page 40 Reigns, compass'd with the ring of pleasing dread, Which the true wizard, whether bard or sage, Draws round him living, and commands when dead-- The solemn Merlin--from the midnight won The hosts that bow'd to starry Solomon.
Not fear that light on Arthur's breast bestow'd, 41 As with a father's smile it met his gaze; It cheer'd, it soothed, it warm'd him while it glow'd; Brought back the memory of young hopeful days, When the child stood by the great prophet's knee, And drank high thoughts to strengthen years to be.
As with a tender chiding, the calm light 42 Seem'd to reproach him for secreted care, Seem'd to ask back the old familiar right Of lore to counsel, or of love to share; The prompt heart answers to the voiceless call, And the step quickens o'er the winding wall.
Before that tower precipitously sink 43 The walls, down-shelving to the castle base; A slender drawbridge, swung from brink to brink, Alone gives fearful access to the place; Now, from that tower, the chains the drawbridge raise, And leave the gulf all pathless to the gaze.
But close where Arthur stands, a warder's horn, 44 Fix'd to the stone, to those who dare to win The enchanter's cell, supplies the note to warn The mighty weaver of dread webs within. Loud sounds the horn, the chain descending clangs, And o'er the abyss the dizzy pathway hangs;
Mutely the door slides sullen in the stone, 45 And closes back, the gloomy threshold cross'd; There sate the wizard on a Druid throne, Where sate DUW-IOU,[5] ere his reign was lost; His wand uplifted in his solemn hand, And the weird volume on its brazen stand.
O'er the broad breast the heavy brows of thought 46 Hang, as if bow'd beneath the load sublime Of spoils from Nature's fading boundaries brought, Or the dusk treasure-house of orient Time; And the unutterable calmness shows The toil's great victory by the soul's repose.
Ev'n as the Tyrian views his argosies, 47 Moor'd in the port (the gold of Ophir won), And heeds no more the billow and the breeze, And the clouds wandering o'er the wintry sun, So calmly Wisdom eyes (its voyage o'er) The traversed ocean from the beetling shore.
A hundred years press'd o'er that awful head, 48 As o'er an Alp, their diadem of snow; And, as an Alp, a hundred years had fled, And left as firm the giant form below; So in the hush of some Chaonian grove, Sat the grey father of Pelasgic Jove.
Before that power, sublimer than his own, 49 With downcast looks, the King inclined the knee; The enchanter smiled, and, bending from his throne, Drew to his breast his pupil tenderly; And press'd his lips on that young forehead fair, And with large hand smooth'd back the golden hair!
And, looking in those frank and azure eyes, 50 "What," said the prophet, "doth my Arthur seek From the grey wisdom which the young despise? The young, perchance, are right!--Fair infant, speak!" Thrice sigh'd the monarch, and at length began: "Can wisdom ward the storms of fate from man?
"What spell can thrust Affliction from the gate? 51 What tree is sacred from the lightning flame?" "Son," said the seer, "the laurel!--even Fate, Which blasts Ambition, but illumines Fame. Say on."--The King smiled sternly, and obey'd-- Track we the steps which track'd the warning shade.
"On to the wood, and to its inmost dell 52 Will-less I went," the monarch thus pursued, "Before me still, but darkly visible, The Phantom glided through the solitude; At length it paused,--a sunless pool was near, As ebon black, and yet as chrystal clear.
"'Look, King, below,' whisper'd the shadowy One: 53 What seem'd a hand sign'd beckoning to the wave; I look'd below, and never realms undone Show'd war more awful than the mirror gave; There rush'd the steed, there glanced on spear the spear, And spectre-squadrons closed in fell career.
"I saw--I saw my dragon standard there,-- 54 Throng'd there the Briton; there the Saxon wheel'd; I saw it vanish from that nether air-- I saw it trampled on that noiseless field; On pour'd the Saxon hosts--we fled--we fled! And the Pale Horse[6] rose ghastly o'er the dead.
"Lo, the wan shadow of a giant hand 55 Pass'd o'er the pool--the demon war was gone; City on city stretch'd, and land on land; The wondrous landscape broadening, lengthening on, Till that small compass in its clasp contain'd All this wide isle o'er which my fathers reign'd.
"There, by the lord of streams, a palace rose; 56 On bloody floors there was a throne of state; And in the land there dwelt one race--our foes; And on the single throne the Saxon sate! And Cymri's crown was on his knitted brow; And where stands Carduel, went the labourer's plough.
"And east and west, and north and south I turn'd, 57 And call'd my people as a king should call; Pale in the hollow mountains I discern'd Rude scatter'd stragglers from the common thrall; Kingless and armyless, by crag and cave,-- Ghosts on the margin of their country's grave.
"And even there, amidst the barren steeps, 58 I heard the tramp, I saw the Saxon steel; Aloft, red Murder like a deluge sweeps, Nor rock can save, nor cavern can conceal; Hill after hill, the waves devouring rise, Till in one mist of carnage closed my eyes!
"Then spoke the hell-born shadow by my side-- 59 'O king, who dreamest, amid sweets and bloom, Life, like one summer holiday, can glide, Blind to the storm-cloud of the coming doom; ARTHUR PENDRAGON, to the Saxon's sway Thy kingdom and thy crown shall pass away.'
"'And who art thou, that Heaven's august decrees 60 Usurp'st thus?' I cried, and lo the space Was void!--Amidst the horror of the trees, And by the pool, which mirror'd back the face Of Dark in crystal darkness--there I stood, And the sole spectre was the Solitude!
"I knew no more--strong as a mighty dream 61 The trouble seized the soul, and seal'd the sense; I knew no more, till in the blessed beam, Life sprung to loving Nature for defence; Vale, flower, and fountain laugh'd in jocund spring, And pride came back,--again I was a king!
"But, ev'n the while with airy sport of tongue 62 (As with light wing the skylark from its nest Lures the invading step) I led the throng From the dark brood of terror in my breast; Still frown'd the vision on my haunted eye, And blood seem'd reddening in the azure sky.
"O thou, the Almighty Lord of earth and heaven, 63 Without whose will not ev'n a sparrow falls, If to my sight the fearful truth was given, If thy dread hand hath graven on these walls The Chaldee's doom, and to the stranger's sway My kingdom and my crown shall pass away,--
"Grant this--a freeman's, if a monarch's, prayer!-- 64 LIFE, while my life one man from chains can save; While earth one refuge, or the cave one lair, Yields to the closing struggle of the brave!-- Mine the last desperate but avenging hand; If reft the sceptre, not resign'd the brand!"
"Close to my clasp!" the prophet cried, "Impart 65 To these iced veins the glow of youth once more; The healthful throb of one great human heart Baffles more fiends than all a magian's lore; Brave child----" Young arms embracing check'd the rest, And youth and age stood mingled breast to breast.
"Ho!" cried the mighty master, while he broke 66 From the embrace, and round from vault to floor Mysterious echoes answered as he spoke; And flames twined snake-like round the wand he bore. And freezing winds tumultuous swept the cell, As from the wings of hosts invisible:
"Ho! ye spiritual Ministers of all 67 The airy space below the Sapphire Throne, To the swift axle of this earthly ball-- Yea, to the deep, where evermore alone Hell's king with memory of lost glory dwells. And from that memory weaves his hell of hells;--
"Ho! ye who fill the crevices of air, 68 And speed the whirlwind round the reeling bark-- Or dart destroying in the forked glare, Or rise--the bloodless People of the Dark, In the pale shape of Dreams--when to the bed Of Murder glide the simulated dead,--
"Hither ye myriad hosts!--O'er tower and dome, 69 Wait the high mission, and attend the word; Whether to pierce the mountain with the gnome, Or soar to heights where never wing'd the bird; So that the secret and the boon ye wrest From Time's cold grasp, or Fate's reluctant breast!"
Mute stood the King--when lo, the dragon-keep 70 Shook to its rack'd foundations, as when all Corycia's caverns and the Delphic steep Shook to the foot-tread of invading Gaul; Or, as his path when flaming AEtna frees, Shakes some proud city on Sicilian seas;
Reel'd heaving from his feet the dizzy floor; 71 Swam dreamlike on his gaze the fading cell; As falls the seaman, when the waves dash o'er The plank that glideth from his grasp--he fell. To eyes ungifted, deadly were the least Of those last mysteries, Nature yields her priest.
Morn, the joy-bringer, from her sparkling urn 72 Scatters o'er herb and flower the orient dew; The larks to heaven, and souls to thought return-- Life, in each source, leaps rushing forth anew, Fills every grain in Nature's boundless plan, And wakes new fates in each desire of man.
In each desire, each thought, each fear, each hope, 73 Each scheme, each wish, each fancy, and each end, That morn calls forth, say, who can span the scope? Who track the arrow which the soul may send? One morning woke Olympia's youthful son, And long'd for fame--and half the world was won.
Fair shines the sun on stately Carduel; 74 The falcon, hoodwink'd, basks upon the wall; The tilt-yard echoes with the clarion's swell, And lusty youth comes thronging to the call; And martial sports (the daily wont) begin, The page must practise if the knight would win.
Some spur the palfrey at the distant ring; 75 Some, with blunt lance, in mimic tourney charge; Here skirs the pebble from the poised sling, Or flies the arrow rounding to the targe; While Age and Fame sigh smiling to behold The young leaves budding to replace the old.
Nor yet forgot, amid the special sports 76 Of polish'd Chivalry, the primal ten[8] Athletic contests, known in elder courts Ere knighthood rose from the great Father-men. Beyond the tilt-yard spread the larger space, For the strong wrestle, and the breathless race;
Here some, the huge dull weights up-heaving throw; 77 Some ply the staff, and some the sword and shield; And some that falchion with its thunder-blow Which HEUS[9] the Guardian, taught the Celt, to wield; Heus, who first guided o'er "the Hazy Main" Our Titan[10] sires from Defrobanni's plain.
Life thus astir, and sport upon the wing, 78 Why yet doth Arthur dream day's prime away? Still in charm'd slumber lies the quiet King; On his own couch the merry sunbeams play, Gleam o'er the arms hung trophied from the wall; And Cymri's antique crown surmounting all.
Slowly he woke; life came back with a sigh 79 (That herald, or that follower, to the gate Of all our knowledge)--and his startled eye Fell where beside his couch the prophet sate; And with that sight rush'd back the mystic cell, The awful summons, the arrested spell.
"Prince," said the prophet, "with this morn awake 80 From pomp, from pleasure, to high toils and brave; From yonder wall the arms of knighthood take, But leave the crown the knightly arms may save; O'er mount and vale, go, pilgrim, forth alone, And win the gifts which shall defend a throne.
"Thus speak the Fates--till in the heavens the sun 81 Rounds his revolving course, O King, return To man's first, noblest birthright, TOIL:--so won In Grecian fable, to the ambrosial urn Of joyous Hebe, and the Olympian grove, The labouring son Alemena bore to Jove.
"By the stout heart to peril's sight inured, 82 By the wise brain which toil hath stored and skill'd, Valour is school'd and glory is secured, And the large ends of fame and fate fulfill'd: But hear the gifts thy year of proof must gain, To fail in one leaves those achieved in vain.
"The falchion, welded from a diamond gem, 83 Hid in the Lake of Argent Music-Falls, Where springs a forest from a single stem, And moon-lit waters close o'er Cuthite halls-- First taste the herb that grows upon a grave, Then see the bark that wafts thee down the wave.
"The silver Shield in which the infant sleep 84 Of Thor was cradled,--now the jealous care Of the fierce dwarf whose home is on the deep, Where drifting ice-rocks clash in lifeless air; And War's pale Sisters smile to see the shock Stir the still curtains round the couch of Lok.
"And last of all--before the Iron Gate 85 Which opes its entrance at the faintest breath, But hath no egress; where remorseless Fate Sits, weaving life, within the porch of Death; Earth's childlike guide shall wait thee in the gloom, With golden locks, and looks that light the tomb.
"Achieve the sword, the shield, the virgin guide, 86 And in those gifts appease the Powers of wrath; Be danger braved, and be delight defied, From grief take wisdom, and from wisdom faith;-- And though dark wings hang o'er these threaten'd halls, Though war's red surge break thundering round thy walls,
"Though, in the rear of time, these prophet eyes 87 See to thy sons, thy Cymrians, many a woe; Yet from thy loins a race of kings shall rise, Whose throne shall shadow all the seas that flow; Whose empire, broader than the Caesar won, Shall clasp a realm where never sets the sun:
"And thou, thyself, shalt live from age to age, 88 A thought of beauty and a type of fame;-- Not the faint memory of some mouldering page, But by the hearths of men a household name: Theme to all song, and marvel to all youth-- Beloved as Fable, yet believed as Truth.
"But if thou fail--thrice woe!" Up sprang the King: 89 "Let the woe fall on feeble kings who fail Their country's need! When eagles spread the wing, They face the sun, not tremble at the gale: And, if ordain'd heaven's mission to perform, They bear the thunder where they cleave the storm."
Ere yet the shadows from the castle's base 90 Show'd lapsing noon--in Carduel's council-hall, To the high princes of the Dragon race, The mighty Prophet, whom the awe of all As Fate's unerring oracle adored,-- Told the self exile of the parted lord;
For his throne's safety and his country's weal 91 On high emprise to distant regions bound; The cause must wisdom for success conceal; For each sage counsel is, as fate, profound: And none may trace the travail in the seed Till the blade burst to glory in the deed.
Few were the orders, as wise orders are, 92 For the upholding of the chiefless throne; To strengthen peace and yet prepare for war; Lest the fierce Saxon (Arthur's absence known) Loose death's pale charger from the broken rein, To its grim pastures on the bloody plain.
Leave we the startled Princes in the hall; 93 Leave we the wondering babblers in the mart; The grief, the guess, the hope, the doubt, and all That stir a nation to its inmost heart, When some portentous Chance, unseen till then, Strides in the circles of unthinking men.[11]
Where the screen'd portal from the embattled town 94 Opes midway on the hill, the lonely King, Forth issuing, guides his barded charger down The steep descent. Amidst the pomp of spring Lapses the lucid river; jocund May Waits in the vale to strew with flowers his way.
Of brightest steel (but not emboss'd with gold 95 As when in tourneys rode the royal knight), His arms flash sunshine back; the azure fold Of the broad mantle, like a wave of light, Floats tremulous, and leaves the sword-arm free.-- Fair was that darling of all Poetry!
Through the raised vizor beam'd the fearless eye, 96 The limpid mirror of a stately soul; Bright with young hope, but grave with purpose high; Sweet to encourage, steadfast to control; An eye from which subjected hosts might draw, As from a double fountain, love and awe.
The careless curl, that from the helm escaped, 97 Gleam'd in the sunlight, lending gold to gold. Nor fairer face, in Parian marble shaped, Beam'd gracious down from Delian shrines of old; Albeit in bolder majesty look'd forth The hardy soul of the chivalric North
O'er the light limb, and o'er the shoulders broad, 98 The steel flow'd pliant as a silken vest; Strength was so supple that like grace it show'd, And force was only by its ease confest; Ev'n as the storms in gentlest waters sleep, And in the ripple flows the mighty deep.
Now wound his path beside the woods that hang 99 O'er the green pleasaunce of the sunlit plain, When a young footstep from the forest sprang, And a light hand was on the charger's rein; Surprised, the adventurer halts,--but pleased surveys The friendly face that smiles upon his gaze.
Of all the flowers of knighthood in his train 100 Three he loved best; young Caradoc the mild, Whose soul was fill'd with song; and frank Gawaine,[12] Whom mirth for ever, like a fairy child, Lock'd from the cares of life; but neither grew Close to his heart, like Lancelot the true.
Gawaine when gay, and Caradoc when grave, 101 Pleased: but young Lancelot, or grave or gay. As yet life's sea had roll'd not with a wave To rend the plank from those twin hearts away; At childhood's gate instinctive love began, And warm'd with every sun that led to man.
The same sports lured them, the same labours strung, 102 The same song thrill'd them with the same delight; Where in the aisle their maiden arms had hung, The same moon lit them through the watchful night; The same day bound their knighthood to maintain Life from reproach, and honour from a stain.
And if the friendship scarce in each the same, 103 The soul has rivals where the heart has not; So Lancelot loved his Arthur more than fame, And Arthur more than life his Lancelot. Lost here Art's mean distinctions! knightly troth, Frank youth, high thoughts, crown'd Nature's kings in both.[13]
"Whither wends Arthur?" "Whence comes Lancelot?" 104 "From yonder forest, sought at dawn of day." "Why from the forest?" "Prince and brother, what, When the bird startled flutters from the spray, Makes the leaves quiver? What disturbs the rill If but a zephyr floateth from the hill?
"And ask'st thou why thy brother's heart is stirr'd 105 By every tremor that can vex thine own? What in that forest hadst thou seen or heard? What was that shadow o'er thy sunshine thrown? Thy lips were silent,--be the secret thine; But half the trouble it conceal'd was mine.
"Did danger meet thee in that dismal lair? 106 'Twas mine to face it as thy heart had done. 'Twas mine----" "O brother," cried the King, "beware, The fiend has snares it shames not man to shun;-- Ah, woe to eyes on whose recoiling sight Opes the dark world beyond the veil of light!
"Listen to Fate; till once more eves in May 107 Welcome BAL-HUAN back to yon sweet sky,[14] The hunter's lively horn, the hound's deep bay, May fill with joy the VALE OF MELODY,[15] On spell-bound ears the Harper's tones may fall, Love deck the bower, and Pleasure trim the hall--
"But thou, oh thou, my Lancelot shalt mourn 108 The void, a life withdrawn bequeaths the soul; No mirth shall greet thee in the buxom horn-- Nor flash in liquid sunshine from the bowl; Sorrow shall sit where I have dwelt,--and be A second Arthur in its truth to thee.
"Alone I go;--submit; since thus the Fates 109 And the great Prophet of our race ordain; So shall we drive invasion from our gates, Guard life from shame, and Cymri from the chain; No more than this my soul to thine may tell-- Forgive,--Saints shield thee!--now thy hand--farewell!"
"Farewell! Can danger be more strong than death-- 110 Loose the soul's link, the grave-surviving vow? Wilt thou find fragrance ev'n in glory's wreath, If valour weave it for thy single brow? No!--not farewell! What claim more strong than brother Canst thou allow?"--"My Country is my Mother!"--
At the rebuke of those mild, solemn words, 111 Friendship submissive bow'd--its voice was still'd; As when some mighty bard with sudden chords Strikes down the passion he before had thrill'd, Making grief awe;--so rush'd that sentence o'er The soul it master'd;--Lancelot urged no more;
But loosing from the hand it clasp'd, his own, 112 He waved farewell, and turn'd his face away; His sorrow only by his silence shown:-- Thus, when from earth glides summer's golden day, Music forsakes the boughs, and winds the stream; And life, in deep'ning quiet, mourns the beam.
NOTES TO BOOK I.
1.--Page 201, stanza iv.
_While Cymri's dragon, from the Roman's hold, Spread with calm wing o'er Carduel's domes of gold._
The Carduel of the FABLIAUX is not easily ascertained: it is here identified with Caerleon on the Usk, the favourite residence of Arthur, according to the Welch poets. This must have been a city of no ordinary splendour in the supposed age of Arthur, while still fresh from the hands of the Roman; since, so late as the twelfth century, Giraldus Cambrensis, in his well-known description, speaks as an eye-witness of the many vestiges of its former splendour. "Immense palaces, ornamented with gilded roofs, in imitation of Roman magnificence, a tower of prodigious size, remarkable hot baths, relics of temples," &c. (Giraldus Cambrensis, Sir R. Hoare's translation, vol. i. p. 103.) Geoffrey of Monmouth (1. ix. c. 12) also mentions, admiringly, the gilt roofs of Caerleon, a subject on which he might be a little more accurate than in those other details in his notable chronicle, not drawn from the same ocular experience. The luxurious Romans, indeed, had bequeathed to the chiefs of Britain abodes of splendour and habits of refinement which had no parallel in the Saxon domination. Sir F. Palgrave truly remarks, that even in the fourteenth century the edifices raised in Britain by the Romans were so numerous and costly as almost to excel any others on this side of the Alps. Caerleon (Isca Augusta) was the Roman capital of Siluria, the garrison of the renowned Second or Augustan legion, and the Palatian residence of the Praetor. It was not, however, according to national authority, founded by the Romans, but by the mythical Belin Mawr, three centuries before Caesar's invasion. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the dragon was the standard of the Cymry (a word, by the way, which I trust my Welch readers will forgive me for spelling Cymri).
2.--Page 203, stanza xviii.
And through the vale the shrill BON-LEF-HER rings.
The shout of war.
3.--Page 204, stanza xix.
So from the ROCK OF BIRDS the shout of war.
The Rock of Birds--CRAIG Y DERYN--so called from the number of birds (chiefly those of prey) that breed on them.
4.--Page 206, stanza xxxiii.
And found no billow where its beam could rest.
"Qual d'acqua chiara il tremolante lume," &c.--ARIOSTO, canto viii., stanza 71.
5.--Page 207, stanza xlv.
Where sate DUW-IOU, ere his reign was lost.
Duw-Iou (the Taranus of Lucan), the most solemn and august, though not the most popular of the Druidical divinities; answering to the classic Jupiter.
6.--Page 209, stanza liv.
And the Pale Horse rose ghastly o'er the dead.
The White Horse, the standard of the Saxons.
7.--Page 211, stanza lxx.
Shook to the foot-tread of invading Gaul.
PAUSAN. Phoc. c. 28.
8.--Page 212, stanza lxxvi.
Of polish'd Chivalry, the primal ten.
The ten manly games (Gwrolgampau).
9.--Page 212, stanza lxxvii.
Which HEUS, the Guardian, taught the Celt to wield.
HEUS is the same deity as ESUS, or HESUS, mentioned in Lucan, the Mars of the Celts. According to the Welch triads, HEUS (or HU--Hu Gadarn; i. e. the mighty Guardian, or Inspector) brought the people of Cymry first into this isle, from the summer country called Defrobanni (in the Tauric Chersonese), over the Hazy Sea (the German Ocean). Davies, in his Celtic Researches, observes that some commentator, at least as old as the twelfth century, repeatedly explains the situation of Defrobanni as "that on which Constantinople now stands." "This comment," adds Davies, "would not have been made without some authority; it belongs to an age which possessed many documents relating to the history of the Britons which are now no longer extant."
It would be extremely important towards tracing the origin of the Cymry, if authentic and indisputable records of such traditions of their migration from the East can be found in their own legends at an age before learned conjecture could avail itself of the passages in Herodotus and Strabo, which relate to the Cimmerians, and tend to identify that people with our Cymrian ancestors. We find in the first (1. i. c. 14), that the Cimmerians, chased from their original settlements by the Nomadic Scythians, came to Lydia, where they took Sardis (except the citadel). In this account Strabo, on the authority of Callisthenes and Callinus, confirms Herodotus.
In flying from their Scythian foes, the Cimmerians took their course by the sea-coasts to Sinope, and the Cimmerian Bosphorus, and as, after this flight, the old Cimmerian league was broken up, and the tribes dispersed, this gives us the evident date for such migrations as Hu Gadarn is supposed to head; and the coincidence between Welch traditions (if genuinely ancient) and classical authority becomes very remarkable. For the additional corroboration of the hypothesis thus suggested, which is afforded by the identity between the Cimmerians of Asia and the Cimbri of Gaul, see Strabo (1. vii. p. 424, the Oxford edition, 1807). It is curious to note in Herodotus (1. iv. c. 11) that the same domestic feuds which destroyed the Cymrian empire in Britain destroyed the Cimmerians in their original home. While the Scythians invaded them, they quarrelled amongst themselves whether to fight or fly, and settled the dispute by fighting each other, and flying from the enemy.
10.--Page 212, stanza lxxvii.
Our Titan sires from Defrobanni's plain.
"Our Titan sires,"--according to certain mythologists, the Celts, or Cimmerians, were the Titans.
11.--Page 214, stanza xciii.
Strides in the circles of unthinking men.
Imitated from Schiller.
12.--Page 215, stanza c.
_And frank Gawaine, Whom mirth for ever, like a fairy child, Lock'd from the cares of life._
Some liberty, in the course of this poem, will be taken with the legendary character, less perhaps of the Gawaine of the Fabliaux, than of the Gwalchmai (Hawk of Battle) of the Welch bards. In both, indeed, this hero is represented as sage, courteous, and eloquent; but he is a livelier character in the Fabliaux than in the tales of his native land. The characters of many of the Cymrian heroes, indeed, vary according to the caprice of the poets. Thus Kai, in the Triads, one of the Three Diademed chiefs of battle and a powerful magician, is, in the French romances, Messire Queux, the chief of the cooks; and in the Mabinogion,[A] he is at one time but an unlucky knight of more valour than discretion, and at another time attains the dignity assigned to him in the Triads, and exults in supernatural attributes. And poor Gawaine himself, the mirror of chivalry, in most of the Fabliaux is, as Southey observes, "shamefully calumniated" in the MORT D'ARTHUR as the "false Gawaine." The Caradoc of this poem is not intended to be identified with the hero Caradoc Vreichvras. The name was sufficiently common in Britain (it is the right reading for Caractacus) to allow to the use of the poet as many Caradocs as he pleases.
13.--Page 216, stanza ciii.
Frank youth, high thoughts, crown'd Nature's kings in both.
Lancelot was, indeed, the son of a king, but a dethroned and a tributary one. The popular history of his infancy will be told in a subsequent book.
14.--Page 216, stanza cvii.
Welcome BAL-HUAN back to yon sweet sky.
Bal-Huan, the sun. Those heaps of stone found throughout Britain (Crugiau or Carneu), were sacred to the sun in the Druid worship, and served as beacons in his honour on May eve. May was his consecrated month. The rocking-stones which mark these sanctuaries were called amber-stones.
15.--Page 216, stanza cvii.
May fill with joy the VALE OF MELODY.
Cwm-pPenllafar, the Vale of Melody--so called (as Mr. Pennant suggests) from the music of the hounds when in full cry over the neighbouring Rock of the Hunter.
[A] I cannot quote the Mabinogion without expressing a grateful sense of the obligations Lady Charlotte Guest has conferred upon all lovers of our early literature, in her invaluable edition and translation of that interesting collection of British romances.