XI. ARGUMENT
The Siege of Carduel--The Saxon forces--Stanzas relative to Ludovick the Vandal, in explanation of the failure of his promised aid, and in description of the events in Vandal-land--The preparations of the Saxon host for the final assault on the City, under cover of the approaching night--The state of Carduel--Discord--Despondence--Famine--The apparent impossibility to resist the coming Enemy--Dialogue between Caradoc and Merlin--Caradoc hears his sentence, and is resigned--He takes his harp and descends into the town--The progress of Song; in its effects upon the multitude--Caradoc's address to the people he has roused, and the rush to the Council Hall--Meanwhile the Saxons reach the walls----The burst of the Cymrians--The Saxons retire into the plain between the Camp and the City, and there take their stand--The battle described--The single combat between Lancelot and Harold--Crida leads on his reserve; the Cymrians take alarm and waver--The prediction invented by the noble devotion of Caradoc--His fate--The enthusiasm of the Cymrians, and the retreat of the enemy to their Camp--The first entrance of a Happy Soul into Heaven--The Ghost that appears to Arthur, and leads him through the Cimmerian tomb to the Realm of Death--The sense of time and space are annihilated--Death, the Phantasmal Everywhere--Its brevity and nothingness--The condition of soul is life, whether here or hereafter--Fate and Nature identical--Arthur accosted by his Guardian Angel--After the address of that Angel (which represents what we call Conscience), Arthur loses his former fear both of the realm and the Phantom--He addresses the Ghost, which vanishes without reply to his question--The last boon--The destined Soother--Arthur recovering, as from a trance, sees the Maiden of the Tomb--Her description--The Dove is beheld no more--Strange resemblance between the Maiden and the Dove--Arthur is led to his ship, and sails at once for Carduel--He arrives on the Cymrian territory, and lands with Gawaine and the Maiden, near Carduel, amidst the ruins of a hamlet devastated by the Saxons--He seeks a Convent, of which only one tower, built by the Romans, remains--From the hill-top he surveys the walls of Carduel and the Saxon encampment--The appearance of the holy Abbess, who recognizes the King, and conducts him and his companions to the subterranean grottos built by the Romans for a summer retreat--He leaves the Maiden to the care of the Abbess, and concerts with Gawaine the scheme for attack on the Saxons--The Virgin is conducted to the cell of the Abbess--Her thoughts and recollections, which explain her history--Her resolution--She attempts to escape--Meets the Abbess, who hangs the Cross round her neck, and blesses her--She departs to the Saxon Camp.
King Crida's hosts are storming Carduel! 1 From vale to mount one world of armour shines, Round castled piles for which the forest fell, Spreads the white war-town of the Teuton lines; To countless clarions countless standards swell; King Crida's hosts axe storming Carduel!
There, all its floods the Saxon deluge pours; 2 All the fierce tribes; from those whose fathers first, With their red seaxes from the southward shores, Carved realms for Hengist,--to the bands that burst Along the Humber, on the idle wall Rome built for manhood rotted by her thrall.
There, wild allies from many a kindred race, 3 In Cymrian lands hail Teuton thrones to be: Dark Jutland wails her absent populace,-- And large-limb'd sons, his waves no more shall see, Leave Danube desolate! afar they roam Where halts the Raven there to find a home!
But wherefore fail the Vandal's promised bands? 4 Well said the Greek, "Not till his latest hour Deem man secure from Fortune;" in our hands We clutch the sunbeam when we grasp at power;-- No strength detains the unsubstantial prize, The light escapes us as the moment flies.
And monarchs envied Ludovick the Great! 5 And wisdom's seers his wiles did wisdom call, And Force stood sentry at his castle gate, And Mammon soothed the murmurers in the hall; For Freedom's forms disguised the despot's thought-- He ruled by synods--and the synods bought!
Yet empires rest not or on gold or steel; 6 The old in habit strike the gnarled root; But vigorous faith--the young fresh sap of zeal, Must make the life-blood of the planted shoot-- And new-born states, like new religions, need Not the dull code, but the impassion'd creed.
Give but a cause, a child may be a chief! 7 What cause to hosts can Ludovick supply? Swift flies the Element of Power, Belief, From all foundations hollow'd to a lie. One morn, a riot in the streets arose, And left the Vandal crownless at the close.
A plump of spears the riot could have crush'd! 8 "Defend the throne, my spearmen!" cried the king. The spearmen arm'd, and forth the spearmen rush'd, When, woe! they took to reason on the thing! And then conviction smote them on the spot, That for that throne they did not care a jot.
With scuff and scum, with urchins loosed from school, 9 Thieves, gleemen, jugglers, beggars, swell'd the riot; While, like the gods of Epicurus, cool On crowd and crown the spearmen look'd in quiet, Till all its heads that Hydra call'd "The Many," Stretch'd hissing forth without a stroke at any.
At first Astutio, wrong but very wise, 10 Disdain'd the Hydra as a fabled creature, The vague invention of a Poet's lies, Unknown to Pliny and the laws of Nature-- Nor till the fact was past philosophizing, Saith he, "That's Hydra, there is no disguising!
"A Hydra, Sire, a Hercules demands; 11 So if not Hercules, assume his vizard." The advice is good--the Vandal wrings his hands, Kicks out the Sage--and rushes to a wizard. The wizard waves his wand--disarms the sentry And (wondrous man) enchants the mob--with entry.
Thus fell, though no man touch'd him, Ludovick, 12 Tripp'd by the slide of his own slippery feet. The crown cajoled from Fortune by a trick, Fortune, in turn, outcheated from the cheat; Clapp'd her sly cap the glittering bauble on, Cried "Presto!"--raised it--and the gaud was gone.
Ev'n at the last, to self and nature true, 13 No royal heart the breath of danger woke; To mean disguise habitual instinct flew, And the king vanish'd in a craftsman's cloak. While his brave princes scampering for their lives, Relictis parmulis--forgot their wives!
King Mob succeeding to the vacant throne, 14 Chose for his ministers some wild Chaldeans,-- Who told the sun to close the day at noon, Nor sweat to death his betters the plebeians; And bade the earth, unvex'd by plough and spade, Bring forth its wheat in quarterns ready made.
The sun refused the astronomic fiat; 15 The earth declined to bake the corn it grew; King Mob then order'd that a second riot Should teach Creation what it had to do. "The sun shines on, the earth demands the tillage-- Down Time and Nature, and hurrah for pillage!"
Then rise en masse the burghers of the town; 16 Each patriot breast the fires of Brutus fill; Gentle as lambs when riot reach'd the crown, They raged like lions when it touch'd the till. Rush'd all who boasted of a shop to rob, And stout King Money soon dethroned King Mob.
This done, much scandalised to note the fact 17 That o'er the short tyrannic rise the tall, The middle-sized a penal law enact That henceforth height must be the same in all; For being each born equal with the other, What greater crime than to outgrow your brother?
Poor Vandals, do the towers, when foes assail, 18 So idly soar above the level wall? Harmonious Order needs its music-scale; The Equal were the discord of the All. Let the wave undulate, the mountain rise; Nor ask from Law what Nature's self denies.
O vagrant Muse, deserting all too long, 19 Freedom's grand war for frenzy's goblin dream, The hour runs on, and redemands from song, And from our Father-land the mighty theme. The Pale Horse rushes and the trumpets swell, King Crida's hosts are storming Carduel!
Within the inmost fort by pine trees made, 20 The hardy women kneel to warrior gods. For where the Saxon armaments invade, All life abandons their resign'd abodes. The tents they pitch the all they prize contain; And each new march is for a new domain.
To the stern gods the fair-hair'd women kneel, 21 As slow to rest the red sun glides along; And near and far, hammers, and clanking steel, Neighs from impatient barbs, and runic song Mutter'd o'er mystic fires by wizard priests, Invite the Valkyrs to the raven feasts.
For after nine long moons of siege and storm, 22 Thy hold, Pendragon, trembles to its fall! Loftier the Roman tower uprears its form, From the crush'd bastion and the shatter'd wall. And but till night those iron floods delay Their rush of thunder:--Blood-red sinks the day.
Death halts to strike, and swift the moment flies: 23 Within the walls (than all without more fell), Discord with Babel tongues confounds the wise, And spectral Panic, like a form of hell Chased by a Fury, fleets,--or, stone-like, stands Dull-eyed Despondence, palsying nerveless hands.
And Pride, that evil angel of the Celt, 24 Whispers to all "'tis servile to obey," Robs order'd Union of its starry belt, Rends chief from chief and tribe from tribe away, And leaves the children wrangling for command Round the wild death-throes of the Father-land.
In breadless marts, the ill-persuading fiend 25 Famine, stalks maddening with her wolfish stare; And hearts, on whose stout anchors Faith had lean'd, Bound at her look to treason from despair, Shouting, "Why shrink we from the Saxon's thrall? Is slavery worse than Famine smiting all?"
Thus, in the absence of the sunlike king, 26 All phantoms stalk abroad; dissolve and droop Light and the life of nations--while the wing Of Carnage halts but for its rushing swoop. Some moan, some rave, some laze the hours away;-- And down from Carduel blood-red sunk the day!
Leaning against a broken parapet 27 Alone with Thought, mused Caradoc the Bard, When a voice smote him, and he turn'd and met A gaze prophetic in its sad regard. Beside him, solemn with his hundred years, Stood the arch hierarch of the Cymrian seers.
"Dost thou remember," said the Sage, "that hour 28 When seeking signs to Glory's distant way, Thou heard'st the night bird in her leafy bower, Singing sweet death-chaunts to her shining prey, While thy young poet-heart, with ravish'd breath, Hung on the music, nor divined the death?"[1]
"Ay," the bard answer'd, "and ev'n now methought 29 I heard again the ambrosial melody!" "So," sigh'd the Prophet, "to the bard, unsought, Come the far whispers of Futurity! Like his own harp, his soul a wind can thrill, And the chord murmur, though the hand be still.
"Wilt thou for ever, even from the tomb, 30 Live, yet a music, in the hearts of all; Arise and save thy country from its doom; Arise, Immortal, at the angel's call! The hour shall give thee all thy life implor'd, And make the lyre more glorious than the sword.
"In vain through yon dull stupor of despair 31 Sound Geraint's tromp and Owaine's battle cry; In vain where yon rude clamour storms the air, The Council Chiefs stem madd'ning mutiny; From Trystan's mail the lion heart is gone, And on the breach stands Lancelot alone!
"Drivelling the wise, and impotent the strong; 32 Fast into night the life of Freedom dies; Awake, Light-Bringer, wake bright soul of song, Kindler, reviver, re-creator rise! Crown thy great mission with thy parting breath, And teach to hosts the Bard's disdain of death!"
Thrill'd at that voice the soul of Caradoc; 33 He heard, and knew his glory and his doom. As when in summer's noon the lightning shock Smites some fair elm in all its pomp of bloom, 'Mid whose green boughs each vernal breeze had play'd, And air's sweet race melodious homes had made;
So that young life bow'd sad beneath the stroke 34 That sear'd the Fresh and still'd the Musical, Yet on the sadness Thought sublimely broke: Holy the tree on which the bolt doth fall! Wild flowers shall spring the sacred roots around, And nightly fairies tread the haunted ground;
There, age by age, shall youth with musing brow, 35 Hear Legend murmuring of the days of yore; There, virgin love more lasting deem the vow Breathed in the shade of branches green no more; And kind Religion keep the grand decay Still on the earth while forests pass away.
"So be it, O voice from Heaven," the Bard replied, 36 "Some grateful tears may yet embalm my name, Ever for human love my youth hath sigh'd And human love's divinest form is fame. Is the dream erring? shall the song remain? Say, can one Poet ever live in vain?"
As the warm south on some unfathom'd sea, 37 Along the Magian's soul, the awful rest Stirr'd with the soft emotion: tenderly He laid his hand upon the brows he blest, And said, "Complete beneath a brighter sun That course, The Beautiful, which life begun.
"Joyous and light, and fetterless through all 38 The blissful, infinite, empyreal space, If then thy spirit stoopeth to recall The ray it shed upon the human race, See where the ray had kindled from the dearth, Seeds that shall glad the garners of the earth!
"Never true Poet lived and sung in vain! 39 Lost if his name, and wither'd if his wreath, The thoughts he woke--an element remain Fused in our light and blended with our breath; All life more noble, and all earth more fair. Because that soul refined man's common air!"[2]
Then rose the Bard, and smilingly unslung 40 His harp of ivory sheen, from shoulders broad, Kissing the hand that doom'd his life, he sprung Light from the shatter'd wall,--and swiftly strode Where, herdlike huddled in the central space, Droop'd, in dull pause, the cowering populace.
There, in the midst he stood! The heavens were pale 41 With the first stars, unseen amidst the glare Cast from large pine-brands on the sullen mail Of listless legions and the streaming hair Of women, wailing for the absent dead, Or bow'd o'er infant lips that moan'd for bread.
From out the illumed cathedral hollowly 42 Swell'd, like a dirge, the hymn; and through the throng Whose looks had lost all commerce with the sky, With lifted rood the slow monks swept along, And vanish'd hopeless; From those wrecks of man Fled ev'n Religion: Then the BARD began.
Slow, pitying, soft it glides, the liquid lay, 43 Sad with the burthen of the Singer's soul Into the heart it coil'd its lulling way; Wave upon wave the golden river stole: Hush'd to his feet forgetful Famine crept, And Woe, reviving, veil'd the eyes that wept.
Then stern, and harsh, clash'd the ascending strain, 44 Telling of ills more dismal yet in store; Rough with the iron of the grinding chain, Dire with the curse of slavery evermore; Wild shrieks from lips belov'd pale warriors hear, Her child's last death-groan rends the mother's ear;
Then trembling hands instinctive griped the swords; 45 And men unquiet sought each other's eyes; Loud into pomp sonorous swell the chords, Like linked legions march the melodies; Till the full rapture swept the Bard along, And o'er the listeners rush'd the storm of song!
And the Dead spoke! from cairns and kingly graves 46 The Heroes call'd;--and Saints from earliest shrines; And the Land spoke!--Mellifluous river-waves; Dim forests awful with the roar of pines; Mysterious caves from legion-haunted deeps; And torrents flashing from untrodden steeps;--
THE LAND OF FREEDOM call'd upon the Free! 47 All Nature spoke; the clarions of the wind; The organ swell of the majestic sea; The choral stars! the Universal Mind Spoke, like the voice from which the world began, "No chain for Nature and the Soul of Man!"
Then loud through all, as if mankind's reply, 48 Burst from the Bard the Cymrian battle hymn! That song which swell'd the anthems of the sky, The Alleluia of the Seraphim; When Saints led on the Children of the Lord, And smote the Heathen with the Angel's sword.[3]
As leaps the warfire on the beacon hills, 49 Leapt in each heart the lofty flame divine; As into sunlight flash the molten rills, Flash'd the glad claymores,[4] lightening line on line; From cloud to cloud as thunder speeds along, From rank to rank rush'd forth the choral song.--
Woman and child--all caught the fire of men, 50 To its own heaven that Alleluia rang, Life to the spectres had return'd again; And from the grave an armed Nation sprang! Then spoke the Bard,--each crest its plumage bow'd, As the large voice went lengthening through the crowd
"Hark to the measur'd march!--The Saxons come! 51 The sound earth quails beneath the hollow tread; Your fathers rush'd upon the swords of Rome And climb'd her war-ships, when the Caesar fled! The Saxons come! why wait within the wall? They scale the mountain--let its torrents fall!
"Mark, ye have swords, and shields, and armour, YE! 52 No mail defends the Cymrian Child of Song,[5] But where the warrior--there the Bard shall be! All fields of glory to the Bard belong! His realm extends wherever godlike strife Spurns the base death, and wins immortal life.
"Unarm'd he goes--his guard the shields of all, 53 Where he bounds foremost on the Saxon spear! Unarm'd he goes, that, falling, ev'n his fall Shall bring no shame, and shall bequeath no fear! Does his song cease?--avenge it by the deed, And make his sepulchre--a nation freed!"
He said, and where the chieftains wrangling sate, 54 Led the grand army marshall'd by his song, Into the hall--and on the wild debate, King of all kings, A PEOPLE, pour'd along; And from the heart of man--the trumpet cry Smote faction down, "Arms, arms, and Liberty!"--
Meanwhile roll'd on the Saxon's long array; 55 On to the wall the surge of slaughter roll'd; Slow up the mount--slow heaved its labouring way; The moonlight rested on the domes of gold; No warder peals alarum from the Keep, And Death comes mute, as on the realm of Sleep;
When, as their ladders touch'd the ruin'd wall, 56 And to the van, high-towering, Harold strode, Sudden expand the brazen gates, and all The awful arch as with the lava glow'd; Torch upon torch the deathful sweep illumes, The burst of armour and the flash of plumes!
Rings Owaine's shout;--rings Geraint's thunder-cry, 57 The Saxon's death-knell in a hundred wars; And Cador's laugh of triumph;--through the sky Rush tossing banderolls swift as shooting stars, Trystan's white lion--Lancelot's cross of red, And Tudor's[6] standard with the Saxon's head.
And high o'er all, its scaled splendour rears 58 The vengeful emblem of the Dragon Kings. Full on the Saxon bursts the storm of spears; Far down the vale the charging whirlwind rings, While through the ranks its barbed knightood clave, All Carduel follows with its roaring wave.
And ever in the van, with robes of white 59 And ivory harp, shone swordless Caradoc! And ever floated in melodious might, The clear song buoyant o'er the battle shock; Calm as an eagle when the Olympian King Sends the red bolt upon the tranquil wing.
Borne back, and wedged within the ponderous weight 60 Of their own jarr'd and multitudinous crowd, Recoil'd the Saxons! As adown the height Of some grey mountain, rolls the cloven cloud, Smit by the shafts of the resistless day,-- Down to the vale sunk dun the rent array.
Midway between the camp and Carduel, 61 Halting their slow retreat, the Saxons stood: There, as the wall-like ocean ere it fell On AEgypt's chariots, gather'd up the flood; There, in suspended deluge, solid rose, And hung expectant o'er the hurrying foes!
Right in the centre, rampired round with shields, 62 King Crida stood,--o'er him, its livid mane The horse whose pasture is the Valkyr's fields Flung wide;--but, foremost through the javelin-rain, Blazed Harold's helm, as when, through all the stars Distinct, pale soothsayers see the dooming Mars.
Down dazzling sweeps the Cymrian Chivalry; 63 Round the bright sweep closes the Saxon wall; Snatch'd from the glimmer of the funeral sky, Raves the blind murder; and enclasp'd with all Its own stern hell, against the iron bar Pants the fierce heart of the imprison'd War.
Only by gleaming banners and the flash 64 Of some large sword, the vex'd Obscure once more Sparkled to light. In one tumultous clash Merg'd every sound--as when the maelstrom's roar By dire Lofoden, dulls the seaman's groan, And drowns the voice of tempests in its own.
The Cymrian ranks,--disparted from their van, 65 And their hemm'd horsemen,--stubborn, but in vain, Press through the levell'd spears; yet, man by man, And shield to shield close-serried, they sustain The sleeting hail against them hurtling sent, From every cloud in that dread armament.
But now, at length, cleaving the solid clang, 66 And o'er the dead men in their frowning sleep, The rallying shouts of chiefs confronted rang,-- "Thor and Walhalla!"--answer'd swift and deep By "Alleluia!" and thy chanted cry, Young Bard sublime, "For Christ and Liberty!"
Then the ranks open'd, and the midnight moon 67 Stream'd where the battle, like the scornful main, Ebb'd from the dismal wrecks its wrath had strewn. Paused either host;--lo, in the central plain Two chiefs had met, and in that breathless pause, Each to its champion left a Nation's cause.
Now, Heaven defend thee, noble Lancelot! 68 For never yet such danger thee befel, Though loftier deeds than thine emblazon not The peerless Twelve of golden Carduel, Though oft thy breast hath singly stemm'd a field,-- As when thy claymore clang'd on Harold's shield!
And Lancelot knew not his majestic foe, 69 Save by his deeds; by Cador's cloven crest; By Modred's corpse; by rills of blood below, And shrinking helms above;--when from the rest, Spurring,--the steel of his uplifted brand Drew down the lightning of that red right hand.
Full on the Saxon's shield the sword descends; 70 The strong shield clattering shivers at the stroke, And the bright crest with all its plumage bends As to the blast with all its boughs an oak: As from the blast an oak with all its boughs, Retowering slow, the crest sublime arose.
Grasp'd with both hands, above the Cymrian swung 71 The axe that Odin taught his sons to wield, Thrice through the air the circling iron sung, Then crash'd resounding:--horse and horseman recl'd, Though slant from sword and casque the weapon shore, Down sword and casque the weight resistless bore.
The bright plume mingles with the charger's mane; 72 Light leaves the heaven, and sense forsakes the breath; Aloft the axe impatient whirrs again,-- The steed wild-snorting bounds and foils the death; While on its neck the reins unheeded flow, It shames and saves its Lord, and flies the foe.
"Lo, Saxons, lo, what chiefs these Walloons[7] lead!" 73 Laugh'd hollow from his helm the scornful Thane. Then towards the Christian knights he spurr'd his steed, When midway in his rush--rushes again The foe that rallied while he seem'd to fly, As wheels the falcon ere it swoops from high;--
And as the falcon, while its talons dart 74 Into the crane's broad bosom, splits its own On the sharp beak, and, clinging heart to heart, Both in one plumage blent, spin whirling down,-- So in that shock each found, and dealt the blow; Horse roll'd on horse, fell grappling foe on foe.
First to his feet the slighter Cymrian leapt, 75 And on the Saxon's breast set firm his knee; Then o'er the heathen host a shudder crept, Rose all their voices,--wild and wailingly; "Woe, Harold, woe!" as from one bosom came, The groan of thousands, and the mighty name.
The Cymrian starts, and stays his lifted hand, 76 For at that name from Harold's vizor shone Genevra's eyes! Back in its sheath the brand He plunged:--sprang Harold--and the foe was gone,-- Lost where the Saxons rush'd along the plain, To save the living or avenge the slain.
Spurr'd to the rescue every Cymrian knight, 77 Again confused, the onslaught raged on high; Again the war-shout swell'd above the fight, Again the chant "for Christ and Liberty," When with fresh hosts unbreath'd, the Saxon king Forth from the wall of shields leapt thundering.
Behind the chief the dreadful gonfanon 78 Spread;--the Pale Horse went rushing down the wind.-- "On where the Valkyrs point to Carduel, on! On o'er the corpses to the wolf consign'd! On, that the Pale Horse, ere the night be o'er Stall'd in yon tower, may rest his hoofs of gore!"
Thus spoke the king, and all his hosts replied; 79 Fill'd by his word and kindled by his look-- (For helmless with his grey hair streaming wide, He strided through the spears)--the mountains shook-- Shook the dim city--as that answer rang! The fierce shout chiming to the buckler's clang!
Aghast, the Cymrians see, like Titan sons 80 New-born from earth,--leap forth the sudden bands: As when the wind's invisible tremour runs Through corn-sheaves ripening for the reaper's hands, The glittering tumult undulating flows, And the field quivers where the panic goes.
The Cymrians waver--shrink--recoil--give way, 81 Strike with weak hands amazed; half turn to flee; In vain with knightly charge the chiefs delay The hostile mass that rolls resistlessly, And the pale hoofs for aye had trampled down The Cymrian freedom and the Dragon Crown,
But for that arch preserver, under heaven, 82 Of names and states, the Bard! the hour was come To prove the ends for which the lyre was given:-- Each thought divine demands its martyrdom. "Where round the central standard rallying flock The Dragon Chiefs--paused and spoke Caradoc!
"Ye Cymrian men!" Hush'd at the calm sweet sound, 83 Droop'd the wild murmur, bow'd the loftiest crest, Meekly the haughty paladins group'd round The swordless hero with the mailless breast, Whose front, serene amid the spears, had taught To humbled Force the chivalry of Thought.
"Ye Cymrian men--from Heus the Guardian's tomb 84 I speak the oracular promise of the Past. Fear not the Saxon! Till the judgment doom Free on their hills the Dragon race shall last, If from you heathen, ye this night can save One spot not wider than a single grave.
"For thus the antique prophecy decrees,-- 85 'When where the Pale Horse crushes down the dead, War's sons shall see the lonely child of peace Grasp at the mane to fall beneath the tread-- There, where he falleth let his dust remain, There, bid the Dragon rest above the slain;
"'There, let the steel-clad living watch the clay, 86 Till on that spot their swords the grave have made, And the Pale Horse shall melt in cloud away, No stranger's step the sacred mound invade: A people's life that single death shall save, And all the land be hallow'd by a grave.'
"So be the Guardian's prophecy fulfill'd, 87 Advance the Dragon, for the grave is mine." He ceased: while yet the silver accents thrill'd Each mailed bosom down the listening line, Bounded his steed, and like an arrow went His plume, swift glancing through the armament.
On through the tempest went it glimmering, 88 On through the rushing barbs and levell'd spears; On where, far streaming o'er the Teuton king, Its horrent pomp the ghastly standard rears. On rush'd to rescue all to whom his breath Left what saves Nations,--the disdain of death!
Alike the loftiest knight and meanest man, 89 All the roused host, but now so panic-chill'd, All Cymri once more as one Cymrian, With the last light of that grand spirit fill'd, Through rank on rank, mow'd down, down trampled, sped, And reach'd the standard--to defend the dead.
Wrench'd from the heathen's hand, one moment bow'd 90 In the bright Christian's grasp the gonfanon; Then from a dumb amaze the countless crowd Swept,--and the night as with a sudden sun Flash'd with avenging steel; life gain'd its goal, And calm from lips proud-smiling went the soul!
Leapt from his selle, the king-born Lancelot; 91 Leapt from the selle each paladin and knight; In one mute sign that where upon that spot The foot was planted, God forbade the flight: There shall the Father-land avenge the son, Or heap all Cymri round the grave of one.
Then, well-nigh side by side--broad floated forth 92 The Cymrian Dragon and the Teuton Steed, The rival Powers that struggle for the North; The gory Idol--the chivalric Creed; Odin's and Christ's confronting flags unfurl'd, As which should save and which destroy a world!
Then fought those Cymrian men, as if on each 93 All Cymri set its last undaunted hope; Through the steel bulwarks round them yawns the breach; Vistas to freedom bright'ning onwards ope; Crida in vain leads band on slaughter'd band, In vain revived falls Harold's ruthless hand;
As on the bull the pard will fearless bound, 94 But if the horn that meets the spring should gore, Awed with fierce pain, slinks snarling from the ground;-- So baffled in their midmost rush, before The abrupt assault, the savage hosts give way;-- Yet will not own that man could thus dismay.
"Some God more mighty than Walhalla's king, 95 Strikes in yon arms"--the sullen murmurs run, And fast and faster drives the Dragon wing-- And shrinks and cowers the ghastly gonfanon; They flag--they falter--lo, the Saxons fly!-- Lone rests the Dragon in the dawning sky!
Lone rests the Dragon with its wings outspread, 96 Where the pale hoofs one holy ground had trod, There the hush'd victors round the martyr'd dead, As round an altar, lift their hearts to God. Calm is that brow as when a host it braved, And smiles that lip as on the land it saved!
Pardon, ye shrouded and mysterious Powers, 97 Ye far-off shadows from the spirit-clime, If for that realm untrodden by the Hours, Awhile we leave this lazar-house of Time; With Song remounting to those native airs Of which, though exiled, still we are the heirs.
Up from the clay and towards the Seraphim, 98 The Immortal, men called Caradoc, arose. Round the freed captive whose melodious hymn Had hail'd each glimmer earth, the dungeon, knows, Spread all the aisles by angel worship trod; Blazed every altar, conscious of the God.
All the illumed creation one calm shrine; 99 All space one rapt adoring ecstasy; All the sweet stars with their untroubled shine, Near and more near, enlarging through the sky; All opening gradual on the eternal sight, Joy after joy, the depths of their delight.
Paused on the marge, Heaven's beautiful New-born, 100 Paused on the marge of that wide happiness; And as a lark that, poised amid the morn, Shakes from its wing the dews--the plumes of bliss, Sunn'd in the dawn of the diviner birth, Shook every sorrow memory bore from earth:
Knowledge (that on the troubled waves of sense 101 Breaks into sparkles)--pour'd upon the soul Its lambent, clear, translucent affluence, And cold-eyed Reason loosed its hard control; Each godlike guess beheld the truth it sought; And Inspiration flash'd from what was Thought.
Still'd evermore the old familiar train 102 That fill the frail Proscenium of our deeds, The unquiet actors on that stage, the brain, Which, in the spangles of their tinsell'd weeds, Mime the true soul's majestic royalties, And strut august in Wonder's credulous eyes;--
Ambition's madness in the vain desires, 103 Which seek a goddess but to clasp a cloud; And human Passion that with fatal fires Consumes the shrine to which its faith is vow'd; And even Hope, that fairest nurse of Grief, Crown'd with young flowers,--a blight in every leaf;
All these are still--abandon'd to the worm, 104 Their loud breath jars not on the calm above! Only survived, as if the single germ Of the new life's ambrosian being,--LOVE. Ah, if the bud can give such bloom to Time, What is the flower when in its native clime?
Love to the radiant Stranger left alone 105 Of all the vanish'd hosts of memory; While broadening round, on splendour splendour shone, To earth soft-pitying dropt the veilless eye, And saw the shape, that love remember'd still, Couch'd 'mid the ruins on the moonlit hill.
And, with the new-born vision, piercing all 106 Things past and future, view'd the fates ordain'd; The fame achieved amidst the Coral Hall; From war and winter Freedom's symbol gain'd, What rests?--the Spirit from its realm of bliss, Shot, loving down,--the guide to Happiness!
Pale to the Cymrian King the Shadow came, 107 Its glory left it as the earth it near'd, In livid likeness as its corpse the same, Wan with its wounds the awful ghost appear'd. Life heard the voice of unembodied breath, And Sleep stood trembling side by side with Death.
"Come," said the Voice, "Before the Iron Gate 108 Which hath no egress, waiting thee, behold Under the shadow of the brows of Fate, The childlike playmate with the locks of gold." Then rose the mortal, following, and, before, Moved the pale shape the angel's comrade wore.
Where, in the centre of those ruins grey, 109 Immense with blind walls columnless, a tomb For earlier kings, whose names had pass'd away, Chill'd the chill moonlight with its mass of gloom, Through doors ajar to every prying blast By which to rot imperial dust had past.
The Vision went, and went the living King; 110 Then strange and hard to human hear to tell By language moulded but by thoughts that bring Material images, what there befel! The mortal enter'd Eld's dumb burial place, And at the threshold, vanish'd Time and Space.
Yea, the hard sense of time was from the mind 111 Rased and annihilate;--yea, space to eye And soul was presenceless? What rest behind? Thought and the Infinite! the eternal I, And its true realm the Limitless, whose brink Thought ever nears: What bounds us when we think?
Yea, as the dupe in tales Arabian, 112 Dipp'd but his brow beneath the beaker's brim, And in that instant all the life of man From youth to age roll'd its slow years on him, And while the foot stood motionless--the soul Swept with deliberate wing from pole to pole,
So when the man the Grave's still portals pass'd, 113 Closed on the substances or cheats of earth, The Immaterial, for the things it glass'd, Shaped a new vision from the matter's dearth: Before the sight that saw not through the clay, The undefined Immeasurable lay.
A realm not land, nor sea, nor earth, nor sky, 114 Like air impalpable, and yet not air;-- "Where am I led?" ask'd Life with hollow sigh. "To Death, that dim phantasmal EVERY WHERE," The Ghost replied. "Nature's circumfluent robe, Girding all life--the globule or the globe."
"Yet," said the Mortal, "if indeed this breath 115 Profane the world that lies beyond the tomb; Where is the Spirit-race that peoples death? My soul surveys but unsubstantial gloom, A void--a blank--where none preside or dwell, Nor woe nor bliss is here, nor heaven nor hell."
"And what is death?--a name for nothingness,"[8] 116 Replied the Dead; "the shadow of a shade; Death can retain no spirit!--woe and bliss, And heaven and hell, are for the living made; An instant flits between life's latest sigh And life's renewal;--that it is to die!
"From the brief Here to the eternal There 117 We can but see the swift flash of the goal; Less than the space between two waves of air, The void between existence and a soul; Wherefore, look forth; and with calm sight endure The vague, impalpable, inane Obscure:
"Lo, by the Iron Gate a giant cloud 118 From which emerge (the form itself unseen) Vast adamantine brows sublimely bow'd Over the dark,--relentlessly serene; Thou canst not view the hand beneath the fold, The work it weaveth none but God behold.
"Yet ever from this Nothingness of Death, 119 That hand shapes out the myriad pomps of life; Receives the matter when resign'd the breath, Calms into Law the elemental strife; On each still'd atom forms afresh bestows (No atom lost since first Creation rose).
"Thus seen, what men call Nature, thou surveyest, 120 But matter boundeth not the still one's power; In every deed its presence thou displayest. It prompts each impulse, guides each winged hour, It spells the Valkyrs to their gory loom, It calls the blessing from the bane they doom:
"It rides the steed, it saileth with the bark, 121 Wafts the first corn-seed to the herbless wild, Alike directing through the doom of dark, The age-long nation and the new-born child; Here the dread Power, yet loftier tasks await, And NATURE, twofold, takes the name of FATE.
"Nature or Fate, Matter's material life. 122 Or to all spirit the spiritual guide, Alike with one harmonious being rife, Form but the whole which only names divide; Fate's crushing power, or Nature's gentle skill, Alike one Good--from one all-loving Will."
While thus the Shade benign instructs the King, 123 Near the dark cloud the still brows bended o'er, They come: a soft wind with continuous wing Sighs through the gloom and trembles through the door, "Hark to that air," the gentle Phantom said, "In each faint murmur flit unseen the dead,--
"Pass through the gate, from life the life resume, 124 As the old impulse flies to heaven or hell." While spoke the Ghost, stood forth amidst the gloom, A lucent Image, crown'd with asphodel, The left hand bore a mirror crystal-bright, A wand star-pointed glitter'd in the right.
"Dost thou not know me?--me, thy second soul?" 125 Said the bright Image, with its low sweet voice, "I who have led thee to each noble goal, Mirror'd thy heart, and starward led thy choice? To teach thee wisdom won in Labour's school, I lured thy footsteps to the forest pool,
"Show'd all the woes which wait inebriate power, 126 And woke the man from youth's voluptuous dream; Glass'd on the crystal--let each stainless hour Obey the wand I lift unto the beam; And at the last, when yonder gates expand, Pass with thine angel, Conscience, hand in hand."
Spoke the sweet Splendour, and as music dies 127 Into the heart that hears, subsides away; Then Arthur lifted his serenest eyes Towards the pale Shade from the celestial day, And said, "O thou in life belov'd so well, Dream I or wake?--As those last accents fell,
"So fears that, spite of thy mild words, dismay'd, 128 Fears not of death, but that which death conceals, Vanish;--my soul that trembled at thy shade, Yearns to the far light which the shade reveals, And sees how human is the dismal error Thad hideth God, when veiling death with terror.
"Ev'n thus some infant, in the early spring, 129 Under the pale buds of the almond-tree, Shrinks from the wind that with an icy wing Shakes showering down white flakes that seem to be Winter's wan sleet,--till the quick sunbeam shows That those were blossoms which he took for snows.
"Thou to this last and sovran mystery 130 Of my mysterious travail guiding sent, Dear as thou wert, I will not mourn for thee, Thou wert not shaped for earth's hard element-- Our ends, our aims, our pleasure, and our woe, Thou knew'st them all, but thine we could not know.
"Forgive that none were worthy of thy worth! 131 That none took heed, upon the plodding way, What diamond dew was on the flowers of earth, Till in thy soul drawn upward to the day. But now, why gape the wounds upon thy breast? What guilty hand dismiss'd thee to the Blest?
"For blest thou art, beloved and lost? Oh, speak, 132 Say thou art with the Angels?"--As at night Far off the pharos on the mountain-peak Sends o'er dim ocean one pale path of light, Lost in the wideness of the weltering Sea, So, that one gleam along eternity
Vouchsafed, the radiant guide (its mission closed) 133 Fled, and the mortal stood amidst the cloud! All dark above, lo at his feet reposed Beneath the Brow's still terror o'er it bow'd, With eyes that lit the gloom through which they smiled, A Virgin shape, half woman and half child!
There, bright before the iron gates of Death, 134 Bright in the shadow of the awful Power Which did as Nature give the human breath, As Fate mature the germ and nurse the flower Of earth for heaven,--Toil's last and sweetest prize, The destined Soother lifts her fearless eyes!
Through all the mortal's fame enraptured thrills 135 A subtler tide, a life ambrosial, Bright as the fabled element which fills The veins of Gods to whom in Ida's hall Flush'd Hebe brims the urn. The transport broke The charm that gave it--and the Dreamer woke.
Was it in truth a Dream? He gazed around, 136 And saw the granite of sepulchral walls; Through open doors, along the desolate ground, O'er coffin dust--the morning sunbeam falls; On mouldering relics life its splendour flings, The arms of warriors and the bones of kings.--
He stood within that Golgotha of old, 137 Whither the Phantom first had led the soul. It was no dream! lo, round those locks of gold Rest the young sunbeams like an auriole; Lo, where the day, night's mystic promise keeps, And in the tomb a life of beauty sleeps!
Slow to his eyes, those lids reveal their own, 138 And, the lips smiling even in their sigh, The Virgin woke! Oh, never yet was known, In bower or plaisaunce under summer sky, Life so enrich'd with nature's happiest bloom As thine, thou young Aurora of the tomb!
Words cannot paint thee, gentlest cynosure 139 Of all things lovely in that loveliest form, Souls wear--the youth of woman! brows as pure As Memphian skies that never knew a storm; Lips with such sweetness in their honey'd deeps As fills the rose in which a fairy sleeps;
Eyes on whose tenderest azure aching hearts 140 Might look as to a heaven, and cease to grieve; The very blush,--as day, when it departs, Haloes in flushing, the mild cheek of eve,-- Taking soft warmth in light from earth afar, Heralds no thought less holy than a star.
And Arthur spoke! O ye, all noble souls, 141 Divine how knighthood speaks to maiden fear! Yet, is it fear which that young heart controuls And leaves its music voiceless on the ear?-- Ye, who have felt what words can ne'er express, Say then, is fear as still as happiness?
By the mute pathos of an eloquent sign, 142 Her rosy finger on her lip, the maid Seem'd to denote that on that coral shrine Speech was to silence vow'd. Then from the shade Gliding--she stood beneath the golden skies, Fair as the dawn that brighten'd Paradise.
And Arthur look'd, and saw the Dove no more; 143 Yet, by some wild and wondrous glamoury, Changed to the shape the new companion wore, His soul the missing Angel seem'd to see; And, soft and silent as the earlier guide, The soft eyes thrill, the silent footsteps glide.
Through paths his yester steps had fail'd to find, 144 Adown the woodland slope she leads the king,-- And pausing oft, she turns to look behind, As oft had turn'd the Dove upon the wing; And oft he question'd, still to find reply Mute on the lip, yet struggling to the eye.
Far briefer now the way, and open more 145 To heaven, than those his whilom steps had won; And sudden, lo! his galley's brazen prore Beams from the greenwood burnish'd in the sun; Up from the sward his watchful cruisers spring, And loud-lipp'd welcome girds with joy the King.
Now plies the rapid oar, now swells the sail; 146 All day, and deep into the heart of night, Flies the glad bark before the favouring gale; Now Sabra's virgin waters dance in light Under the large full moon, on margents green, Lone with charr'd wrecks where Saxon fires have been.
Here furls the sail, here rests awhile the oar, 147 And from the crews the Cymrians and the maid Pass with mute breath upon the mournful shore; For, where yon groves the gradual hillock shade, A convent stood when Arthur left the land. God grant the shrine hath 'scaped the heathen's hand!
Landing, on lifeless hearths, through roofless walls 148 And casement gaps, the ghost-like starbeams peer; Welcomed by night and ruin, hollow falls The footstep of a King!--Upon the ear The inexpressible hush of murder lay,-- Wide yawn'd the doors, and not a watch dog's bay!
They pass the groves, they gain the holt, and lo! 149 Rests of the sacred pile but one grey tower, A fort for luxury in the long-ago Of gentile gods, and Rome's voluptuous power. But far on walls yet spared, the moonbeams fell,-- Far on the golden domes of Carduel!
"Joy," cried the King, "behold, the land lives still!" 150 Then Gawaine pointed, where in lengthening line The Saxon watch-fires from the haunted hill (Shorn of its forest old) their blood-red shine Fling over Isca, and with wrathful flush Gild the vast storm-cloud of the armed hush.
"Ay," said the King, "in that lull'd Massacre 151 Doth no ghost whisper Crida--'Sleep no more!' "Hark, where I stand, dark murder-chief, on thee I launch the doom! ye airs, that wander o'er Ruins and graveless bones, to Crida's sleep Bear Cymri's promise, which her king shall keep!"
As thus he spoke, upon his outstretch'd arm 152 A light touch trembled,--turning he beheld The maiden of the tomb; a wild alarm Shone from her eyes; his own their terror spell'd. Struggling for speech, the pale lips writhed apart, And, as she clung, he heard her beating heart;
While Arthur marvelling soothed the agony 153 Which, comprehending not, he still could share, Sudden sprang Gawaine--hark! a timorous cry Pierced yon dim shadows! Arthur look'd, and where On artful valves revolved the stony door, A kneeling nun his knight is bending o'er.
Ere the nun's fears the knightly words dispel, 154 As towards the spot the maid and monarch came, On Arthur's brow the slanted moonbeams fell, And the nun knew the King, and call'd his name, And clasp'd his knees, and sobb'd through joyous tears, "Once more; once more! our God his people hears!"
Kin to his blood--the welcome face of one 155 Known as a saint throughout the Christian land, Arthur recall'd, and as a pious son Honouring a mother--on that sacred hand Bent low, in murmuring--"Say, what mercy saves Thee, blest survivor in this shrine of graves?"
Then the nun led them through the artful door, 156 Mask'd in the masonry, adown a stair That coil'd its windings to the grottoed floor Of vaulted chambers desolately fair; Wrought in the green hill, like an Oread's home, For summer heats by some soft lord of Rome,
On shells, which nymphs from silver sands might cull, 157 On paved mosaics, and long-silenced fount, On marble waifs of the far Beautiful By graceful spoiler garner'd from the mount Of vocal Delphi, or the Elean town, Or Sparta's rival of the violet-crown--
Shone the rude cresset from the homely shrine 158 Of that new Power, upon whose Syrian Cross Perish'd the antique Jove! And the grave sign Of the glad faith (which, for the lovely loss Of poet-gods, their own Olympus frees To men!--our souls the new Uranides),
High from the base on which of old reposed 159 Grape-crown'd Iacchus, spoke the Saving Woe! The place itself the sister's tale disclosed. Here, while, amidst the hamlet doom'd below, Raged the fierce Saxon--was retreat secured; Nor gnaw'd the flame where those deep vaults immured.
To peasants, scatter'd through the neighbouring plains, 160 The secret known;--kind hands with pious care Supply such humble nurture as sustains Lives most with fast familiar; thus and there The patient sisters in their faith sublime, Felt God was good, and waited for His time.
Yet ever when the crimes of earth and day 161 Slept in the starry peace, to the lone tower The sainted abbess won her nightly way, And gazed on Carduel!--'Twas the wonted hour When from the opening door the Cymrian knight Saw the pale shadow steal along the light.
Musing, the King the safe retreat survey'd, 162 And smooth'd his brow from times most anxious care; Here--from the strife secure, might rest the maid Not meet the tasks that morn must bring to share; She, while he mused, the nun's mild aspect eyed, And crept with woman's trust to woman's side.
"King," said the gentle saint, "from what far clime 163 Comes this fair stranger, that her eyes alone Answer our mountain tongue?"--"May happier time," Replied the King, "her tale, her land, make known! Meanwhile, O kind recluse, receive the guest To whom these altars seem the native rest."
The sister smiled, "In sooth those looks," she said, 164 "Do speak a soul pure with celestial air; And in the morrow's awful hour of dread Her heart methinks will echo to our prayer, And breathe responsive to the hymns that swell The Christian's curse upon the infidel.
"But say, if truth from rumour vague and wild 165 To this still world the friendly peasants bring, 'That grief and wrath for some lost heathen child, Urge to yon walls the Mercian's direful king?'"-- "Nay," said the Cymrian, "doth ambition fail When force needs falsehood, of the glozing tale?
"And--but behold she droops, she faints, outworn 166 By the long wandering and the scorch of day!" Pale as a lily when the dewless morn, Parch'd in the fiery dog-star, wanes away Into the glare of noon without a cloud, O'er the nun's breast that flower of beauty bow'd.
Yet still the clasp retain'd the hand that press'd, 167 And breath came still, though heaved in sobbing sighs. "Leave her," the sister said, "to needful rest, And to such care as woman best supplies; And may this charge a conqueror soon recall, And change the refuge to a monarch's hall!"
Though found the asylum sought, with boding mind 168 The crowning guerdon of his mystic toil To the kind nun the unwilling King resign'd; Nor till his step was on his mountain soil Did his large heart its lion calm regain, And o'er his soul no thought but Cymri reign.
As towards the bark the friends resume their way, 169 Quick they resolve the conflict's hardy scheme; With half the Northmen, at the break of day Shall Gawaine sail where Sabra's broadening stream Admits a reeded creek, and, landing there, Elude the fleet the neighbouring waters bear;
Through secret paths with bush and bosk o'ergrown, 170 Wind round the tented hill, and win the wall; With Arthur's name arouse the leaguer'd town, Give the pent stream the cataract's rushing fall, Sweep to the camp, and on the Pagan horde Urge all of man that yet survives the sword.
Meanwhile on foot the king shall guide his band 171 Round to the rearward of the vast array Where yet large fragments of the forest stand To shroud with darkness the avenger's way;-- Thence, when least look'd for, burst upon the foe, On war's own heart direct the sudden blow;
Thus, front and rear assail'd, their numbers less 172 (Perplex'd, distraught) avail the heathen's power. Dire was the peril, and the sole success In the nice seizure of the season'd hour; The high-soul'd rashness of the bold emprise; The fear that smites the fiercest in surprise;
Whatever worth the enchanted boons may bear, 173 The hero heart by which those boons were won; The stubborn strength of that supreme despair, When victory lost is all a land undone; In the Man's cause, and in the Christian's zeal, And the just God that sanctions Freedom's steel.
Meanwhile, along a cavelike corridor 174 The stranger guest the gentle abbess led; Where the voluptuous hypocaust of yore Left cells for vestal dreams saint-hallowed. Her own, austerely rude, affords the rest To which her parting kiss consigns the guest.
But welcome not for rest that loneliness! 175 The iron lamp the imaged cross displays; And to that guide for souls, what mute distress Lifts the imploring passion of its gaze? Fear like remorse--and sorrow dark as sin? Enter that mystic heart and look within!
What broken gleams of memory come and go 176 Along the dark!--a silent starry love Lighting young Fancy's virgin waves below, But shed from thoughts that rest ensphered above! Oh, flowers whose bloom had perfumed Carmel, weave Wreathes for such love as lived in Genevieve!
A May noon resteth on the forest hill; 177 A May noon resteth over ruins hoar; A maiden muses on the forest hill, A tomb's vast pile o'ershades the ruins hoar, With doors now open to each prying blast, Where once to rot imperial dust had pass'd;
Through those dark portals glides the musing maid, 178 And slumber drags her down its airy deep. O wondrous trance! in Druid robes array'd, What form benignant charms the life-like sleep? What spells low-chaunted, holy-sweet, like prayer Plume the light soul, and waft it through the air?
Comes a dim sense as of an angel's being, 179 Bathed in ambrosial dews and liquid day; Of floating wings, like heavenward instincts, freeing Through azure solitudes a spirit's way.-- An absence of all earthly thought, desire, Aim--hope, save those which love and which aspire;
Each harder sense of the mere human mind 180 Merged into some protective prescience; Calm gladness, conscious of a charge consign'd To the pure ward of guardian innocence; And the felt presence, in that charge, of one Whose smile to life is as to flowers the sun.
Go on, thou troubled Memory, wander on! 181 Dull, o'er the bounds of the departing trance, Droops the lithe wing the airier life hath known; Yet on the confines of the dream, the glance Sees--where before he stood--the Enchanter stand, Bend the vast brow and stretch the shadowy hand.
And, human sense reviving, on the ear 182 Fall words ambiguous, now with happy hours And plighted love,--and now with threats austere Of demon dangers--of malignant Powers Whose force might yet the counter charm unbind, If loosed the silence to her lips enjoin'd.
Then, as that Image faded from the verge 183 Of life's renew'd horizon--came the day; Yet, ere the last gleams of the vision merge Into earth's common light, their parting ray On Arthur's brow the faithful memories leave, And the Dove's heart still beats in Genevieve!
Still she the presence feels,--resumes the guide, 184 Till slowly, slowly waned the prescient power That gave the guardian to the pilgrim's side;-- And only rested, with her human dower Of gifts sublime to soothe, but weak to save, And blind to warn,--the Daughter of the Grave.
Yet the lost dream bequeathed for evermore 185 Thoughts that did, like a second nature, make Life to that life the Dove had hover'd o'er Cling as an instinct,--and, for that dear sake, Danger and Death had found the woman's love In realms as near the Angels as the Dove.
And now and now is she herself the one 186 To launch the bolt on that beloved life? Shuddering she starts, again she hears the nun Denounce the curse that arms the awful strife; Again her lips the wild cry stifle,--"See Crida's lost child, thy country's curse, in me!"
Or--if along the world of that despair 187 Fleet other spectres--from the ruin'd steep Points the dread arm, and hisses through the air The avenger's sentence on the father's sleep! The dead seem rising from the yawning floor, And the shrine steams as with a shamble's gore.
Sudden she springs, and, from her veiling hands, 188 Lifts the pale courage of her calmed brow; With upward eyes, and murmuring lips, she stands, Raising to heaven the new-born hope:--and now Glides from the cell along the galleried caves, Mute as a moonbeam flitting over waves.
Now gain'd the central grot; now won the stair; 189 The lamp she bore gleam'd on the door of stone; Why halt? what hand detains?--she turn'd, and there, On the nun's serge and brow rebuking, shone The tremulous light; then fear her lips unchain'd From that stern silence by the Dream ordain'd,
And at those holy feet the Saxon fell 190 Sobbing, "Oh, stay me not! Oh, rather free These steps that fly to save his Carduel! Throne, altars, life--his life! In me, in me, To these strange shrines, thy saints in mercy bring Crida's lost Child!--Way, way to save thy king!"
The sister listen'd; gladness, awe, amaze, 191 Fused in that lambent atmosphere of soul, FAITH in the wise All-Good!--so melt the rays Of varying Iris in the lucid whole Of light;--"Thy people still to Thee are dear, O Lord," she murmur'd, "and Thy hand is here!"
"Yes," cried the suppliant, "if my loss deplored, 192 My fate unguess'd--misled and arm'd my sire; When to his heart his child shall be restored, Sure, war itself will in the cause expire! Ruth come with joy,--and in that happy hour Hate drop the steel, and Love alone have power?"
Then the nun took the Saxon to her breast, 193 Round the bow'd neck she hung her sainted cross, And said, "Go forth--O beautiful and blest! And if my king rebuke me for thy loss, Be my reply the gain that loss bestow'd,-- Hearths for his people, altars for his God!"
She ceased;--on secret valves revolv'd the door; 194 On the calm hill-top breath'd the dawning air; One moment paused the steps of Hope, and o'er The war's vast slumber look'd the Soul of Prayer. So halts the bird that from the cage hath flown;-- A light bough rustled, and the Dove was gone.
NOTES TO BOOK XI.
1.--Page 386, stanza xxviii.
Hung on the music, nor divined the death?
See Book ii. pp. 57, 58, from stanza xxvii. to stanza xxx.
2.--Page 388, stanza xxxix.
Because that soul refined man's common air!
Perhaps it is in this sense that Taliessin speaks in his mystical poem called "Taliessin's History," still extant:--
"I have been an instructor To the whole universe. I shall remain till the day of doom On the face of the earth."
3.--Page 389, stanza xlviii.
And smote the Heathen with the Angel's sword.
The Bishops Germanus and Lupus, having baptized the Britains in the river Alyn, led them against the Picts and Saxons, to the cry of "Alleluia." The cry itself, uttered with all the enthusiasm of the Christian host, struck terror into the enemy, who at once took to flight. Most of those who escaped the sword perished in the river. This victory, achieved at Maes-Garmon, was called "Victoria Alleluiatica."--BRIT. ECCLES. ANTIQ., 335; BED., lib. i. c. i. 20.
4.--Page 389, stanza xlix.
Flash'd the glad claymores, lightening line on line.
"The claymore of the Highlanders of Scotland was no other than the cledd mawr (cle'mawr) of the Welch."--CYMRODORION, vol. ii. p. 106.
5.--Page 390, stanza lii.
No mail defends the Cymrian Child of Song.
No Cymrian bard, according to the primitive law, was allowed the use of weapons.
6.--Page 390, stanza lvii.
And Tudor's standard with the Saxon's head.
The old arms of the Tudors were three Saxons' heads.
7.--Page 393, stanza lxxiii.
"Lo, Saxons, lo, what chiefs these Walloons lead!"
Walloons,--the name given by the Saxons, in contumely, to the Cymrians.
8.--Page 399, stanza cxvi.
'And what is death?--a name for nothingness."
The sublime idea of the nonentity of death, of the instantaneous transit of the soul from one phase and cycle of being to another, is earnestly insisted upon by the early Cymrian bards, in terms which seem borrowed from some spiritual belief anterior to that which does in truth teach that the life of man once begun, has not only no end, but no pause--and, in the triumphal cry of the Christian, "O grave, where is thy victory!"--annihilates death.
XII. ARGUMENT
Preliminary Stanzas--Scene returns to Carduel--a day has passed since the retreat of the Saxons into their encampment--The Cymrians take advantage of the enemy's inactivity, to introduce supplies into the famished city--Watch all that day, and far into the following night, is kept round the corpse of Caradoc--Before dawn, the burial takes place--The Prophet by the grave of the Bard--Merlin's address to the Cymrians, whom he dismisses to the walls, in announcing the renewed assault of the Saxons--Merlin then demands a sacrifice from Lancelot--gives commissions to the two sons of Faul the Aleman, and takes Faul himself (to whom an especial charge is destined) to the city--The scene changes to the Temple Fortress of the Saxons--The superstitious panic of the heathen hosts at their late defeat--The magic divinations of the Runic priests--The magnetic trance of the chosen Soothsayer--The Oracle he utters--He demands the blood of a Christian maid--The pause of the priests and the pagan king--The abrupt entrance of Genevieve--Crida's joy--The priests demand the Victim--Genevieve's Christian faith is evinced by the Cross which the Nun had hung round her neck--Crida's reply to the priests--They dismiss one of their number to inflame the army, and so insure the sacrifice--The priests lead the Victim to the Altar, and begin their hymn, as the Soothsayer wakes from his trance--The interruption and the compact--Crida goes from the Temple to the summit of the tower without--The invading march of the Saxon troops under Harold described--The light from the Dragon Keep--The Saxons scale the walls, and disappear within the town--The irruption of flames from the fleet--The dismay of that part of the army that had remained in the camp--The flames are seen by the rest of the heathen army in the streets of Carduel--The approach of the Northmen under Gawaine--The light on the Dragon Keep changes its hue into blood-red, and the Prophet appears on the height of the tower--The retreat of the Saxons from the city--The joy of the Chief Priest--The time demanded by the compact has expired--He summons Crida to complete the sacrifice--Crida's answer--The Priest rushes back into the Temple--The offering is bound to the Altar--Faul! the gleam of the enchanted glaive--The appearance of Arthur--The War takes its last stand within the heathen temple--Crida and the Teuton kings--Arthur meets Crida hand to hand--Meanwhile Harold saves the Gonfanon, and follows the bands under his lead to the river-side--He addresses them, re-forms their ranks, and leads them to the brow of the hill--His embassy to Arthur--The various groups in the heathen temple described--Harold's speech--Arthur's reply--Merlin's prophetic address to the chiefs of the two races--The End.
Flow on, flow on, fair Fable's happy stream, 1 Vocal for aye with Eld's first music-chaunt, Where, mirror'd far adown the chrystal, gleam The golden domes of Carduel and Romaunt; Still one last look on knighthood's peerless ring, On mooned Dream-land and the Dragon King!--
Detain me yet amid the lovely throng, 2 Hold yet thy Sabbat, thou melodious spell! Still to the circle of enchanted song Charm the high Mage of Druid parable, The Fairy, bard-led from her Caspian Sea, And Genius, lured from caves in Araby!
Though me, less fair if less familiar ways, 3 Sought in the paths by earlier steps untrod, Allure--yet ever, in the marvel-maze, The flowers afar perfume the virgin sod; The simplest leaf in fairy gardens cull, And round thee opens all the Beautiful!
Alas! the sunsets of our Northern main 4 Soon lose the tints Hesperian Fancy weaves; Soon the sweet river feels the icy chain, And haunted forests shed their murmurous leaves; The bough must wither, and the bird depart, And winter clasp the world--as life the heart!
A day had pass'd since first the Saxons fled 5 Before the Christian, and their war lay still; From morn to eve the Cymrian riders spread Where flocks yet graze on some remoter hill, Pale, on the walls, fast-sinking Famine waits, When hark, the droves come lowing through the gates!
Yet still, the corpse of Caradoc around, 6 All day, and far into the watch of night, The grateful victors guard the sacred ground; But in that hour when all his race of light Leave Eos lone in heaven,--earth's hollow breast Oped to the dawn-star and the singer's rest.
Now, ere they lower'd the corpse, with noiseless tread 7 Still as a sudden shadow, Merlin came Through the arm'd crowd; and paused before the dead, And, looking on the face, thrice call'd the name. Then, hush'd through all an awed compassion ran, And all gave way to the old quiet man.
For Cymri knew that of her children none 8 Had, like the singer, loved the lonely sage; All felt, that there a father call'd a son Out from that dreariest void,--bereaved age; Forgot the dread renown, the mystic art, And saw but sacred there--the human heart!
And thrice the old man kiss'd the lips that smiled, 9 And thrice he call'd the name,--then to the grave, Hush'd as the nurse that bears a sleeping child To its still mother's breast,--the form he gave: With tender hand composed the solemn rest, And laid the harp upon the silent breast.
And then he sate him down, a little space 10 From the dark couch, and so of none took heed; But lifting to the twilight skies his face, That secret soul which never man could read, Far as the soul it miss'd, from human breath, Rose--where Thought rises when it follows Death!
And swells and falls in gusts the funeral dirge 11 As hollow falls the mould, or swells the mound; And (Cymri's warlike wont) upon the verge The orbed shields are placed in rows around; Now o'er the dead, grass waves;--the rite is done; And a new grave shall greet a rising sun.
Then slowly turn'd, and calmly moved the sage, 12 On the Bard's grave his stand the Prophet took. High o'er the crowd in all his pomp of age August, a glory brighten'd from his look; Hope flash'd in eyes illumined from his own, Bright, as if there some sure redemption shone.
Thus spoke the Seer: "Hosannah to the brave; 13 Lo, the eternal heir-looms of your land! A realm's great treasure-house! The freeman's grave The hero creed that to the swordless hand Thought, when heroic, gives an army's might;-- And song to nations as to plants the light!
"Cymrians, the sun yon towers will scarcely gild, 14 Ere war will scale them! Here, your task is o'er. Your walls your camp, your streets your battle-field; Each house a fortress!--One strong effort more For God, for Freedom--for your shrines and homes! After the Martyr the Deliverer comes!"
He ceased; and such the reverence of the crowd, 15 No lip presumed to question. Wonder hush'd Its curious guess, and only Hope aloud Spoke in the dauntless shout: each cheek was flush'd: Each eye was bright;--each heart beat high; and all Ranged in due ranks, resought the shatter'd wall:
Save only four, whom to that holy spot 16 The Prophet's whisper stay'd:--of these, the one Of knightly port and arms, was Lancelot; But in the ruder three, with garments won From the wild beast,--long hair'd, large limb'd, again See Rhine's strong sons, the convert Alemen!
When these alone remain'd beside the mound, 17 The Prophet drew apart the Paladin, And said, "What time, feud, worse than famine, found The Cymrian race, like some lost child of sin That courts, yet cowers from death;--serene through all The jarring factions of the maddening hall,
"Thou didst in vain breathe high rebuke to pride, 18 With words sublimely proud. 'No post the man Ennobles;--man the post! did He who died To crown in death the end His birth began, Assume the sceptre when the cross He braved? Did He wear purple in the world He saved?
"'Ye clamour which is worthiest of command,-- 19 Place me, whose fathers led the hosts of Gaul, Amongst the meanest children of your land; Let me owe nothing to my fathers,--all To such high deeds as raised, ere kings were known, The boldest savage to the earliest throne!'
"But none did heed thee, and in scornful grief 20 Went thy still footsteps from the raging hall, Where, by the altar of the bright Belief That spans this cloud-world when its sun-showers fall, Assured at least thy bride in heaven to be, Genevra pray'd--not life but death with thee.
"There, by the altar, did ye join your hands, 21 And in your vow, scorning malignant Time, Ye plighted two immortals! in those bands Hope still wove flowers,--but earth was not their clime; Then to the breach alone, resign'd, consoled, Went Gaul's young hero.--Art thou now less bold?
"Thy smile replies! Know, while we speak, the King 22 Is on the march; each moment that delays The foeman, speeds the conqueror on its wing; If, till the hour is ripe, the Saxon stays His rush, then idly wastes it on our wall, Not ours the homes that burn, the shrines that fall!
"But that delay vouchsafed not--comes in vain 23 The bright achiever of enchanted powers; He comes a king,--no people but the slain, And round his throne will crash his blazing towers. This is not all; for him, the morn is rife With one dire curse that threatens more than life;--
"A curse, once launch'd, which withers every leaf 24 In victory's crown, chills youth itself to age! Here magic fails--for over love and grief There is no glamour in the brazen page Born of the mind, o'er mind extends mine art;-- Beyond its circle beats the human heart!
"Delay the hour--save Carduel for thy king; 25 Avert the curse; from misery save thy brother!" "Thrice welcome death," cried Lancelot, "could it bring The bliss to bless mine Arthur! As the mother Lives in her child, the planet in the sky, Thought in the soul, in Arthur so live I."
"Prepare," the Seer replied, "be firm!--and yield 26 The maid thou lovest to her Saxon Sire." Like a man lightning-stricken, Lancelot reel'd, And as if blinded by the intolerant fire, Cover'd his face with his convulsive hand, And groan'd aloud, "What woe dost thou demand?
"Yield her! and wherefore? Cruel as thou art! 27 Can Cymri's king or Carduel's destiny Need the lone offering of a loving heart, Nothing to kings and states, but all to me?" "Son," said the Prophet, "can the human eye Trace by what wave light quivers from the sky;
"Explore some thought whose utterance shakes the earth 28 Along the airy galleries of the brain; Or say, can human wisdom test the worth Of the least link in Fate's harmonious chain? All doubt is cowardice--all trust is brave-- Doubt, and desert thy king;--believe and save."
Then Lancelot fix'd his keen eyes on the sage, 29 And said, "Am I the sacrifice or she? Risks she no danger from the heathen's rage, She, the new Christian?"--"Danger more with thee! Can blazing roofs and trampled altars yield A shelter surer than her father's shield?
"If mortal schemes may foil the threatening hour, 30 Thy heart's reward shall crown thine honour's test; And the same fates that crush the heathen power Restore the Christian to the conqueror's breast; Yea, the same lights that gild the nuptial shrine Of Arthur, shed a beam as bless'd on thine!"
"I trust and I submit," said Lancelot, 31 With pale firm lip. "Go thou--I dare not--I! Say, if I yield, that I abandon not! Her form may leave a desert to my eye, But here--but here!"--No more his lips could say, He smote his bleeding heart, and went his way!
The Enchanter, thoughtful, turn'd, and on the grave 32 His look relaxing fell,--"Ah, child, lost child! To thy young life no youth harmonious gave Music;--no love thine exquisite griefs beguiled; Thy soul's deep ocean hid its priceless pearl:-- And he is loved and yet repines! O churl!"
And murmuring thus, he saw below the mound 33 The stoic brows of the stern Alemen, Their gaunt limbs strewn supine along the ground, Still as gorged lions couch'd before the den After the feast; their life no medium knows,-- Here headlong conflict, there inert repose!
"Which of these feet could overtake the roe? 34 Which of these arms could grapple with the bear?" "My first-born," answer'd Faul, "outstrips the roe; My youngest crushes in his grasp the bear." "Thou, then, the swift one, gird thy loins, and rise: See o'er the lowland where the vapour lies,
"Far to the right, a mist from Sabra's wave; 35 Amidst that haze explore a creek rush-grown, Screen'd from the waters less remote, which lave The Saxon's anchor'd barks, and near a lone Grey crag where bitterns boom; within that creek Gleams through green boughs a galley's brazen peak;
This gain'd, demand the chief, a Christian knight, 36 The bear's rough mantle o'er his rusted mail; Tell him from me, to tarry till a light Burst from the Dragon keep;--then crowd his sail, Fire his own ship--and, blazing to the bay, Cleave through yon fleet his red destroying way;
"No arduous feat: the galleys are unmann'd, 37 Moor'd each to each; let fire consume them all! Then, the shore won, lead hitherwards the band Between the Saxon camp and Cymrian wall. What next behoves, the time itself will show, Here counsel ceases;--there ye find the foe!"
Heard the wild youth, and no reply made he, 38 But braced his belt and griped his spear, and straight As the bird flies, he flew. "My son, to thee," Next said the Prophet, "a more urgent fate And a more perilous duty are consign'd; Mark, the strong arm requires the watchful mind.
"Thou hast to pass the Saxon sentinels; 39 Thou hast to thread the Saxon hosts alone; Many are there whom thy far Rhine expels His swarming war-hive,--and their tongue thine own; Take from yon Teuton dead the mail'd disguise, Thy speech their ears, thy garb shall dupe their eyes;
"The watch-pass 'Vingolf'[1] wins thee through the van, 40 The rest shall danger to thy sense inspire, And that quick light in the hard sloth of man Coil'd, till sharp need strike forth the sudden fire. The encampment traversed, where the woods behind Slope their green gloom, thy stealthy pathway wind;
"Keep to one leftward track, amidst the chase 41 Clear'd for the hunter's sport in happier days; Till scarce a mile from the last tent, a space Clasping grey crommell stones, will close the maze. There, in the centre of that Druid ring, Arm'd men will stand around the Cymrian King:--
"Tell him to set upon the tallest pine 42 Keen watch, and wait, until from Carduel's tower, High o'er the wood a starry light shall shine; Not that the signal, though it nears the hour, But when the light shall change its hues, and form One orb, blood-dyed, as sunsets red with storm;
"Then, while the foe their camp unguarded leave, 43 And round our walls their tides tempestuous roll, To yon wood pile, the Saxon fortress, cleave; Be Odin's Idol the Deliverer's goal. Say to the King, 'In that funereal fane Complete thy mission, and thy guide regain!'"
While spoke the seer, the Teuton's garb of mail 44 The son of Faul had donn'd, and bending now, He kiss'd his father's cheek.--"And if I fail," He murmur'd, "leave thy blessing on my brow, My father!" Then the convert of the wild Look'd up to Heaven, and mutely bless'd his child.
"Thou wend with me, proud sire of dauntless men," 45 Resumed the seer:--"On thine arm let my age Lean, as shall thine upon their children!"--Then The loreless savage--the all-gifted sage, By the strong bonds of will and heart allied; Went towards the towers of Carduel side by side.
To Crida's camp the swift song rushing flies; 46 Round Odin's shrine wild Priests, rune muttering, Task the weird omens hateful to the skies; Pale by the idol stands the grey-hair'd king; And, from without, the unquiet armament Booms in hoarse surge, its chafing discontent.
For in defeat (when first that multitude 47 Shrunk from a foe, and fled the Cymrian sword) The pride of man the wrath of gods had view'd; Religious horror smote the palsied horde; The field refused, till priest, and seid, and charm, Explore the offence, and wrath divine disarm.
All day, all night, glared fires, dark-red and dull 48 With mystic gums, before the Teuton god, And waved o'er runes which Mimer's trunkless skull Had whisper'd Odin--the Diviner's rod, And rank with herbs which baleful odours breathed, The bubbling hell-juice in the cauldron seethed.
Now towards that hour when into coverts dank 49 Slinks back the wolf; when to her callow brood Veers through still boughs, the owl; when from the bank The glow-worm wanes; when heaviest droops the wood, Ere the faint twitter of the earliest lark,-- Ere dawn creeps chill and timorous through the dark;
About that hour, of all the dreariest, 50 A flame leaps up from the dull fire's repose, And shoots weird sparks along the runes, imprest On stone and elm-bark, ranged in ninefold rows; The vine's deep flush the purpling seid assumes, And the strong venom coils in maddening fumes.
Pale grew the elect Diviner's alter'd brows; 51 Swell'd the large veins, and writhed the foaming lips; And as some swart and fateful planet glows Athwart the disc to which it brings eclipse; So that strange Pythian madness, whose control Seems half to light and half efface the soul,
Broke from the horror of his glazing look; 52 His breath that died in hollow gusts away, Seized by the grasp of unseen tempests, shook To its rack'd base the spirit-house of clay; Till the dark Power made firm the crushing spell, And from the man burst forth the voice of hell.
"The god--the god! lo, on his throne he reels! 53 Under his knit brows glow his wrathful eyes! At his dread feet a spectral Valkyr kneels, And shrouds her face! And cloud is in the skies, And neither sun nor star, nor day nor night, But in the cloud a steadfast Cross of Light!
"The god--the god! hide, hide me from his gaze! 54 Its awful anger burns into the brain! Spare me, O spare me! Speak, thy child obeys! What rites appease thee, Father of the Slain?[2] What direful omen do these signs foreshow? What victim ask'st thou? Speak, the blood shall flow!'
Sunk the Possest One--writhing with wild throes; 55 And one appalling silence dusk'd the place, As with a demon's wing. Anon arose, Calm as a ghost, the soothsayer: form and face Rigid with iron sleep! and hollow fell From stonelike lips the hateful oracle.
"A cloud, where Nornas nurse the thunder, lowers; 56 A curse is cleaving to the Teuton race; Before the Cross the stricken Valkyr cowers; The Herr-god trembles on his column'd base; A virgin's loss aroused the Teuton strife; A virgin's love hath charm'd the Avenger's life;
"A virgin's blood alone averts the doom; 57 Revives the Valkyr, and preserves the god. Whet the quick steel--she comes, she comes, for whom The runes glow'd blood-red to the soothsayer's rod! O king, whose wrath the Odin-born array'd, Regain the lost, and yield the Christian maid!"
As if that voice had quicken'd some dead thing 58 To give it utterance, so, when ceased the sound, The dull eye fix'd, and the faint shuddering Stirr'd all the frame; then sudden on the ground Fell heavily the lumpish inert clay, From which the demon noiseless rush'd away.
Then the grey priests and the grey king creep near 59 The corpselike man; and sit them mutely down In the still fire's red vaporous atmosphere; The bubbling caldron sings and simmers on; And through the reeks that from the poison rise, Looks the wolf's blood-lust from those cruel eyes.
So sat they, musing fell;--when hark, a shout 60 Rang loud from rank to rank, re-echoing deep; Hark to the tramp of multitudes without! Near and more near the thickening tumults sweep; King Crida wrathful rose: "What steps profane Thy secret thresholds, Father of the Slain?"
Frowning he strode along the lurid floors, 61 And loud, and loud the invading footsteps ring; His hand impetuous flings apart the doors:-- "Who dare insult the god, and brave the king?" Swift through the throng a bright-hair'd vision came; Those stern lips falter with a daughter's name!
Those hands uplifted, or to curse or smite, 62 Fold o'er a daughter's head their tremulous joy! Oh, to the natural worship of delight, How came the monstrous dogma--"To destroy!" Sure, Heaven foreshow'd its gospel to the wild In earth's first bond--the father and the child!
While words yet fail'd the bliss of that embrace, 63 The muttering priests, unmoved, each other eyed; Then to the threshold came their measured pace:-- "Depart, Profane," their Pagan pontiff cried, "Depart, Profane, too near your steps have trod To altars darken'd with an angry God.
"Dire are the omens! Skulda rides the clouds, 64 Her sisters tremble[3] at the Urdar spring; The hour demands us--shun the veil that shrouds The Priests, the God, the Victim, and the King." Shuddering, the crowds retreat, and whispering low, Spread the contagious terrors where they go.
Then the stern Elders came to Crida's side, 65 And from their lock'd embrace unclasp'd his hands: "Lo," said their chieftain, "how the gods provide Themselves the offering which the shrine demands! By Odin's son be Odin's voice obey'd; The lost is found--behold, and yield the maid!"
As when some hermit saint, in the old day 66 Of the soul's giant war with Solitude, From some bright dream which rapt his life away Amidst the spheres, unclosed his eyes and view'd, 'Twixt sleep and waking, vaguely horrible, The grisly tempter of the gothic hell;
So on the father's bliss abruptly broke 67 The dreadful memory of his dismal god; And, his eyes pleading ere his terrors spoke, Look'd round the brows of that foul brotherhood. Then his big voice came weak and strangely mild, "What mean those words?--why glare ye on my child?
"Do ye not know her? Elders, she is mine,-- 68 My flesh, my blood, mine age's youngest-born! Why are ye mute? Why point to yonder shrine? Ay,"--and here haughty with the joy of scorn, He raised his front.--"Ay, be the voice obey'd! Priests, ye forget,--it was a Christian maid!"
He ceased and laugh'd aloud, as humbled fell 69 Those greedy looks, and mutteringly replied Faint voices, "True, so said the Oracle!" When the Arch-Elder, with an eager stride Reach'd child and sire, and cried, "See Crida, there, On the maid's breast the cross that Christians wear!"
Those looks, those voices, thrill'd through Genevieve, 70 With fears as yet vague, shapeless, undefined: "Father," she murmur'd, "Father, let us leave These dismal precincts; how those eyes unkind Freeze to my soul; sweet father, let us go; My heart to thine would speak! why frown'st thou so?"
"Tear from thy breast that sign, unhappy one! 71 Sign to thy country's wrathful gods accurst! Back, priests of Odin, I am Odin's son, And she my daughter; in my war-shield nurst, Rear'd at your altars! Trample down the sign, O child, and say--the Saxon's God is mine!"
Infant, who came to bid a war relent, 72 And rob ambition of its carnage-prize, Is it on thee those sombre brows are bent? For thee the death-greed in those ravening eyes? Thy task undone, thy gentle prayer unspoken? Ay, press the cross: it is the martyr's token!
She press'd the cross with one firm faithful hand, 73 While one--(that trembled!)--clasp'd her father's knees; As clings a wretch, that sinks in sight of land, To reeds swept with him down the weltering seas, And murmur'd, "Pardon; Him whose agony Was earth's salvation, I may not deny!
"Him who gave God the name I give to thee, 74 'FATHER,'--in Him, in Christ, is my belief!" Then Crida turn'd unto the priests,--"Ye see," Smiling, he said, "that I have done with grief: Behold the victim! be the God obey'd! The son of Odin dooms the Christian maid!"
He said, and from his robe he wrench'd the hand, 75 And, where the gloom was darkest, stalk'd away. But whispering low, still pause the hellish band; And dread lest Nature yet redeem the prey, And deem it wise against such chance to arm The priesthood's puissance with the host's alarm;
To bruit abroad the dark oracular threats, 76 From which the Virgin's blood alone can save; Gird with infuriate fears the murtherous nets, And plant an army to secure a grave; The whispers cease--the doors one gleam of day Give--and then close;--the blood-hound slinks away.
Around the victim--where with wandering hand, 77 Through her blind tears, she seems to search through space For him who had forsaken--circling stand The solemn butchers; calm in every face And death in every heart; till from the belt Stretch'd one lean hand and grasp'd her where she knelt.
And her wild shriek went forth and smote the shrine, 78 Which echo'd, shrilling back the sharp despair, Through the waste gaps between the shafts of pine To th' unseen father's ear. Before the glare Of the weird fire, the sacrifice they chain To stones impress'd with rune and shamble-stain.
Then wait (for so their formal rites compel) 79 Till from the trance that still his senses seals, Awakes the soothsayer of the oracle; At length with tortured spasms, and slowly, steals Back the reluctant life--slow as it creeps To one hard-rescued from the drowning deeps.
And when from dim, uncertain, swimming eyes 80 The gaunt long fingers put the shaggy hair, And on the priests, the shrine, the sacrifice, Dwelt the fix'd sternness of the glassy stare, Before the god they led the demon-man, And circling round the two their hymn began.
So rapt in their remorseless ecstasy, 81 They did not hear the quick steps at the door, Nor that loud knock nor that impatient cry; Till shook,--till crash'd, the portals on the floor,-- Crash'd to the strong hand of the fiery thane; And Harold's stride came clanging up the fane.--
But from his side bounded a shape as light 82 As forms that glide through Elfheim's limber air; Swift to the shrine--where on those robes of white The gloomy hell fires scowl'd their sullen glare, Through the death-chaunting choir,--she sprang,--she prest, And bow'd her head upon the victim's breast;
And cried, "With thee, with thee, to live or die, 83 With thee, my Genevieve!" The Elders raised Their hands in wrath, when from as stern an eye And brow erect as theirs, they shrunk amazed-- And Harold spoke, "Ye priests of Odin, hear! Your gods are mine, their voices I revere.
"Voices in winds, in groves, in hollow caves, 84 Oracular dream, or runic galdra sought; But ages ere from Don's ancestral waves Such wizard signs the Scythian Odin brought, A voice that needs no priesthood's sacred art, Some earlier God placed in the human heart.
"I bow to charms that doom embattled walls: 85 To dreams revealing no unworthy foe; A warrior's god in Glory's clarion calls; Where war-steeds snort, and hurtling standards flow; But when weak women for strong men must die, My Man's proud nature gives your Gods the lie!
"If--not yon seer by fumes and dreams beguiled, 86 But Odin's self stood where his image stands, Against the god I would protect my child! Ha, Crida!--come!--thy child in chains!--those hands Lifted to smite!--and thou, whose kingly bann Arms nations,--wake, O statue, into man!"
For from his lair, and to his liegeman's side, 87 Had Crida listening strode: When ceased the Thane, His voice, comprest and tremulous, replied,-- "The life thou plead'st for doth these shrines profane. In Odin's son a father lives no more; Yon maid adores the God our foes adore."
"And I--and I, stern king!"--Genevra cries, 88 "Her God is mine, and if that faith is crime, Be just--and take a twofold sacrifice!" "Cease," cried the Thane,--"is this, ye Powers, a time For kings and chiefs to lean on idle blades,-- Our leaders dreamers, and our victims maids?
"Be varying gods by varying tribes addrest, 89 I scorn no gods that worthy foes adore; Brave was the arm that humbled Harold's crest, And large the heart that did his child restore. To all the valiant Gladsheim's Halls unclose;[4] In Heaven the comrades were on Earth the foes.
"And if our Gods are wrath, what wonder, when 90 Their traitor priests creep whispering coward fears; Unnerve the arms and rot the hearts of men, And filch the conquest from victorious spears?-- Yes, reverend elders, one such priest I found, And cheer'd my bandogs on the meaner hound!"
"Be dumb, blasphemer," cried the Pontiff seer, 91 "Depart, or dread the vengeance of the shrine; Depart, or armies from these floors shall hear How chiefs can mock what nations deem divine; Then, let her Christian faith thy daughter boast, And brave the answer of the Teuton host!"
A paler hue shot o'er the hardy face 92 Of the great Earl, as thus the Elder spoke; But calm he answer'd, "Summon Odin's race; On me and mine the Teuton's wrath invoke! Let shuddering fathers learn what priests can dream, And warriors judge if I their Gods blaspheme!
"But peace and hearken.--To the king I speak:-- 93 With mine own lithsmen, and such willing aid As Harold's tromps arouse,--yon walls I seek; Be Cymri's throne the ransom of the maid. On Carduel's wall if Saxon standards wave, Let Odin's arms the needless victim save!
"Grant me till noon to prove what men are worth, 94 Who serve the War God by the warlike deed; Refuse me this, King Crida, and henceforth Let chiefs more prized the Mercian armies lead; For I, blunt Harold, join no cause with those Who, wolves for victims, are as hares to foes!"
Scornful he ceased, and lean'd upon his sword; 95 Whispering the Priests, and silent Crida, stood. A living Thor to that barbarian horde Was the bold Thane, and ev'n the men of blood Felt Harold's loss amid the host's dismay Would rend the clasp that link'd the wild array.
At length out spoke the priestly chief, "The gods 96 Endure the boasts, to bow the pride, of men; The Well of Wisdom sinks in Hell's abode; The Laeca shines beside the bautasten,[5] And Truth too oft illumes the eyes that scorn'd, By the death-flash from which in vain it warn'd.
"Be the delay the pride of man demands 97 Vouchsafed, the nothingness of man to show! The gods unsoften'd, march thy futile bands: Till noon, we spare the victim;--seek the foe! But when with equal shadows rests the sun-- The altar reddens, or the walls are won!"
"So be it," the Thane replied, and sternly smiled; 98 Then towards the sister-twain, with pitying brow, Whispering he came,--"Fair friend of Harold's child, Let our own gods at least be with thee now; Pray that the Asas bless the Teuton strife, And guide the swords that strike for thy sweet life."
"Alas!" cried Genevieve, "Christ came to save, 99 Not slay: He taught the weakest how to die; For me, for me, a nation glut the grave! That nation Christ's, and--No, the victim I! Not now for life, my father, see me kneel, But one kind look,--and then, how blunt the steel!"
And Crida moved not! Moist were Harold's eyes; 100 Bending, he whisper'd in Genevra's ear, "Thy presence is her safety! Time denies All words but these;--hope in the brave; revere The gods they serve;--by acts our faith we test; The holiest gods are where the men are best."
"With this he turn'd, "Ye priests," he call'd aloud, 101 "On every head within these walls, I set Dread weregeld for the compact; blood for blood!" Then o'er his brows he closed his bassinet, Shook the black death-pomp of his shadowy plume, And his arm'd stride was lost amidst the gloom.--
And still poor Genevieve with mournful eyes 102 Gazed on the father, whose averted brows Had more of darkness for her soul than lies Under the lids of death. The murmurous And lurid air buzzed with a ghostlike sound From patient Murder's iron lip;--and round
The delicate form which, like a Psyche, seem'd 103 Beauty sublimed into the type of soul, Fresh from such stars as ne'er on Paphos beam'd, When first on Love the chastening vision stole,-- The sister virgin coil'd her clasp of woe; Ev'n as that Sorrow which the Soul must know
Till Soul and Love meet never more to part. 104 At last, from under his wide mantle's fold, The strain'd arms lock'd on his loud-beating heart (As if the anguish which the king controll'd, The man could stifle),--Crida toss'd on high;-- And nature conquer'd in the father's cry!
Over the kneeling form swept his grey hair; 105 On the soft upturn'd eyes prest his wild kiss; And then recoiling, with a livid stare, He faced the priests, and mutter'd, "Dotage this! Crida is old,--come--come;" and from the ring Beckon'd their chief, and went forth tottering.
Out of the fane, up where the stair of pine 106 Wound to the summit of the camp's rough tower, King Crida pass'd. On moving armour shine The healthful beams of the fresh morning hour; He hears the barb's shrill neigh,--the clarion's swell, And half his armies march to Carduel.
Far in the van, like Odin's fatal bird 107 Wing'd for its feast, sails Harold's raven plume. Now from the city's heart a shout is heard, Wall, bastion, tower, their steel-clad life resume; Far shout! faint forms! yet seem they loud and clear To that strain'd eyeball and that feverish ear.
But not on hosts that march by Harold's side, 108 Gazed the stern priest, who stood with Crida there; On sullen gloomy groups--discatter'd wide, Grudging the conflict they refused to share, Or seated round rude tents and piled spears; Circling the mutter of rebellious fears;
Or, near the temple fort, with folded arms 109 On their broad breasts, waiting the deed of blood; On these he gazed--to gloat on the alarms That made him monarch of that multitude! Not one man there had pity in his eye. And the priest smiled,--then turn'd to watch the sky.
And the sky deepen'd, and the time rush'd on. 110 And Crida sees the ladders on the wall; And dust-clouds gather round his gonfanon; And through the dust-clouds glittering rise and fall The meteor lights of helms, and shields, and glaives; Up o'er the rampires mount the labouring waves;
And joyous rings the Saxon's battle shout; 111 And Cymri's angel cry wails like despair; And from the Dragon Keep a light shines out, Calm as a single star in tortured air, To whose high peace, aloof from storms, in vain Looks a lost navy from the violent main.
Now on the nearest wall the Pale Horse stands; 112 Now from the wall the Pale Horse lightens down; And flash and vanish, file on file, the bands Into the rent heart of the howling town; And the Priest paling frown'd upon the sun,-- Though the sky deepen'd and the time rush'd on.
When from the camp around the fane, there rose 113 Ineffable cries of wonder, wrath, and fear; With some strange light that scares the sunshine, glows O'er Sabra's waves the crimson'd atmosphere; And dun from out the widening, widening glare, Like Hela's serpents, smoke-reeks wind through air.
Forth look'd the king, appall'd! and where his masts 114 Soar'd from the verge of the far forest-land, He hears the crackling, as when vernal blasts Shiver Groninga's pines--"Lo, the same hand," Cried the fierce priest, "which sway'd the soothsayer's rod, Writes now the last runes of thine angry god!"
And here and there, and wirbelling to and fro, 115 Confused, distraught, pale thousands spread the plain; Some snatch their arms in haste, and yelling go Where the fleets burn; some creep around the fane Like herds for shelter; prone on earth lie some Shrieking, "The Twilight of the Gods hath come!"
And the great glare hath redden'd o'er the town, 116 And seems the strife it gildeth to appall; Flock back dim straggling Saxons, gazing down The lurid valleys from the jagged wall, Still as on Cuthite towers Chaldean seers, When some red portent flamed into the spheres.
And now from brake and copse--from combe and dell, 117 Gleams break;--steel flashes;--helms on helms arise; Faint heard at first,--now near, now thunderous,--swell The Cymrian mingled with the Baltic cries; And, loud alike in each, exulting came War's noblest music--a Deliverer's name.
"Arthur!--for Arthur!--Arthur is at hand! 118 Woe, Saxons, woe!" Then from the rampart height Vanish'd each watcher; while the rescue-band Sweep the clear slopes; and not a foe in sight! And now the beacon on the Dragon Keep: Springs from pale lustre into hues blood-deep:
And on that tower stood forth a lonely man; 119 Full on his form the beacon glory fell; And joy revived each sinking Cymrian; There, the still Prophet watch'd o'er Carduel! Back o'er the walls, and back through gate and breach, Now ebbs the war, like billows from the beach.
Along the battlements swift crests arise, 120 Swift follow'd by avenging, smiting brands, And fear and flight are in the Saxon cries! The portals vomit bands on hurtling bands; And lo, wide streaming o'er the helms,--again The Pale Horse flings on angry winds its mane!
And facing still the foe, but backward borne 121 By his own men, towers high one kingliest chief; Deep through the distance roll his shout of scorn, And the grand anguish of a hero's grief. Bounded the Priest!--"The Gods are heard at last!-- Proud Harold flieth;--and the noon is past!
Come, Crida, come." Up as from heavy sleep 122 The grey-hair'd giant raised his awful head; As, after calmest waters, the swift leap Of the strong torrent rushes to its bed,-- So the new passion seized and changed the form, As if the rest had braced it for the storm.
No grief was in the iron of that brow; 123 Age cramp'd no sinew in that mighty arm; "Go," he said sternly, "where it fits thee, thou: Thy post with Odin--mine with Managarm![6] Let priests avert the dangers kings must dare; My shrine yon Standard, and my Children--there!"
So from the height he swept--as doth a cloud 124 That brings a tempest when it sinks below; Swift strides a chief amidst the jarring crowd; Swift in stern ranks the rent disorders grow; Swift, as in sails becalm'd swells forth the wind, The wide mass quickens with the one strong mind.
Meanwhile the victim, to the Demon vow'd, 125 Knelt; every thought wing'd for the Angel goal, And ev'n the terror which the form had bow'd Search'd but new sweetness where it shook the soul. Self was forgot, and to the Eternal Ear Prayer but for others spoke the human fear.
And when at moments from that rapt communion 126 With the Invisible Holy, those young arms Clasp'd round her neck, to childhood's happy union In the old days recall'd her; such sweet charms Did Comfort weave, that in the sister's breast Grief like an infant sobb'd itself to rest.
Up leapt the solemn priests from dull repose: 127 The fires were fann'd as with a sudden wind; While shrieking loud, "Hark, hark, the conquering foes! Haste, haste, the victim to the altar bind!" Rush'd to the shrine the haggard Slaughter-Chief.-- As the strong gusts that whirl the fallen leaf
I' the month when wolves descend, the barbarous hands 128 Plunge on the prey of their delirious wrath, Wrench'd from Genevra's clasp;--Lo, where she stands, On earth no anchor,--is she less like Faith? The same smile firmly sad, the same calm eye, The same meek strength;--strength to forgive and die!
"Hear us, O Odin, in this last despair! 129 Hear us, and save!" the Pontiff call'd aloud; "By the Child's blood we shed, thy children spare!" And the knife glitter'd o'er the breast that bow'd. Dropp'd blade;--fell priest!--blood chokes a gurgling groan; Blood,--blood not Christian, dyes the altar-stone!
Deep in the DOOMER'S breast it sank--the dart; 130 As if from Fate it came invisibly; Where is the hand?--from what dark hush shall start Foeman or fiend?--no shape appalls the eye, No sound the ear!--ice-lock'd each coward breath; The Power the Deathsman call'd, hath heard him--Death!
"While yet the stupor stuns the circle there, 131 Fierce shrieks--loud feet--come rushing through the doors: Women with outstretch'd arms and tossing hair, And flying warriors, shake the solemn floors; Thick as the birds storm-driven on the decks Of some lone ship--the last an ocean wrecks.
And where on tumult, tumult whirl'd and roar'd, 132 Shrill'd cries, "The fires around us and behind, And the last Fire-God and the Flaming-Sword!"[7] And from without, like that destroying wind In which the world shall perish, grides and sweeps VICTORY--swift-cleaving through the battle deeps!--
VICTORY, by shouts of terrible rapture known, 133 Through crashing ranks it drives in iron rain; Borne on the wings of fire it blazes on; It halts its storm before the fortress fane; And through the doors, and through the chinks of pine, Flames its red breath upon the paling shrine.
Roused to their demon courage by the dread 134 Of the wild hour, the priests a voice have found; To pious horror show their sacred dead, Invoke the vengeance, and explore the ground, When, like the fiend in monkish legends known, Sprang a grim image on the altar-stone!
The wolf's hide bristled on the shaggy breast 135 Over the brows, the forest buffalo With horn impending arm'd the grisly crest, From which the swart eye sent its savage glow: Long shall the Saxon dreams that shape recall, And ghastly legends teem with tales of FAUL![8]
Needs here to tell, that when, at Merlin's hest, 136 Faul led to Harold's tent the Saxon maid, The wrathful Thane had chased the skulking priest From the paled ranks, that evil Bode[9] dismay'd:-- And the grim tidings of the rite to come Flew lip to lip through that awed Heathendom.
Foretaught by Merlin of her mission there, 137 Scarce to her father's heart Genevra sprung Than (while most soften'd) her impassion'd prayer Pierced to its human deeps; and, roused and stung By that keen pity, keenest in the brave,-- Strength felt why strength is given, and rush'd to save:--
Amidst those quick emotions half forgot, 138 Follow'd the tutor'd furtive Aleman; On, when the portals crash'd, still heeded not, Stole his light step behind the striding Thane. From coign to shaft the practised glider crept, A shadow, lost where shadows darkest slept.
And safe and screen'd the idol god behind, 139 He who once lurk'd to slay, kept watch to save;-- Now there he stood! And the same altar shrined The wild man, the wild god! and up the nave Flight flow'd on flight; and near and loud, the name Of "ARTHUR" borne as on a whirlwind came.
Down from the altar to the victim's side, 140 While yet shrunk back the priests--the savage leapt, And with quick steel gash'd the strong cords that tied; When round them both the rallying vengeance swept; Raised every arm;--O joy!--the enchanted glaive Shines o'er the threshold! is there time to save?
A torch whirls hissing through the air--it falls 141 Into the centre of the murderous throng! Dread herald of dread steps! the conscious halls Quake where the falchion flames and flies along; Though crowd on crowd behold the falchion cleave!-- The Silver Shield rests over Genevieve!
Bright as the shape that smote the Assyrian, 142 The fulgent splendour from the arms divine Paled the hell-fires round God's elected Man, And burst like Truth upon the demon-shrine. Among the thousands stood the Conquering One, Still, lone, and unresisted as a sun!
Now through the doors, commingling side by side, 143 Saxon and Cymrian struggle hand in hand; For there the war, in its fast ebbing tide, Flings its last prey--there, Crida takes his stand; There his co-monarchs hail a funeral pyre That opes Walhalla from the grave of fire.
And as a tiger swept adown a flood 144 With meaner beasts, that dyes the howling water Which whirls it onward, with a waste of blood, And gripes a stay with fangs that leave the slaughter,-- So where halts Crida, groans and falls a foe-- And deep in gore his steps receding go.
And his large sword has made in reeking air 145 Broad space (through which, around the golden ring That crownlike clasps the sweep of his grey hair,) Shine the tall helms of many a Teuton king; Lord of the West--broad-breasted Chevaline; And Ymrick's son of Hengist's giant line;
Fierce Sibert, throned by Britain's kingliest river, 146 And Elrid, honour'd in Northumbrian homes; And many a sire whose stubborn soul for ever Shadows the fields where England's thunder comes. High o'er them all his front grey Crida rears, As some old oak whose crest a forest clears.
High o'er them all, that front fierce Arthur sees, 147 And knows the arch-invader of the land; Swift through the chiefs--swift path his falchion frees; Corpse falls on corpse before the avenger's hand; For fair-hair'd AElla, Cantia's maids shall wail; Hurl'd o'er the dead, rings Elrid's crashing mail;
His follower's arms stunn'd Sibert's might receive, 148 And from the death-blow snatch their bleeding lord; And now behold, O fearful Genevieve, O'er thy doom'd father shines the charmed sword, And shaking, as it shone, the glorious blade, The hand for very wrath the death delay'd.
"At last, at last we meet, on Cymri's soil; 149 And foot to foot! Destroyer of my shrines, And murderer of my people! Ay, recoil Before the doom thy quailing soul divines! Ay--turn thine eyes,--nor hosts nor flight can save! Thy foe is Arthur--and these halls thy grave!"
"Flight," laugh'd the king, whose glance had wander'd round, 150 Where through the throng had pierced a woman's cry, "Flight for a chief, by Saxon warriors crown'd, And from a Walloon!--this is my reply!" And, both hands heaving up the sword enorme, Swept the swift orbit round the luminous form;
Full on the gem the iron drives its course, 151 And shattering clinks in splinters on the floor; The foot unsteadied by the blow's spent force, Slides on the smoothness of the soil of gore; Gore, quench the blood-thirst! guard, O soil, the guest! For Freedom's heel is on the Invader's breast!
When, swift beneath the flashing of the blade, 152 When, swift before the bosom of the foe, She sprang, she came, she knelt,--the guardian maid! And startling vengeance from the righteous blow, Cried, "Spare, oh spare, this sacred life to me, A father's life!--I would have died for thee!"
While thus within, the Christian God prevails, 153 Without the idol temple, fast and far, Like rolling storm-wrecks, shatter'd by the gales, Fly the dark fragments of the Heathen War, Where, through the fires that flash from camp to wave, Escape the land that locks them in its grave?
When by the Hecla of their burning fleet 154 Dismay'd amidst the marts of Carduel, The Saxons rush'd without the walls to meet The Vikings' swords, which their mad terrors swell Into a host--assaulted, rear and van, The foe scarce smote before the flight began.
In vain were Harold's voice, and name, and deeds, 155 Unnerved by omen, priest, and shapeless fear, And less by man than their own barbarous creeds Appall'd,--a God in every shout they hear, And in their blazing barks behold unfurl'd, The wings of Muspell[10] to consume the world.
Yet still awhile the heart of the great Thane, 156 And the stout few that gird the gonfanon, Build a steel bulwark on the midmost plain, That stems all Cymri,--so Despair fights on. When from the camp the new volcanoes spring, With sword and fire he comes,--the Dragon King!
Then all, save Harold, shriek to Hope farewell; 157 Melts the last barrier; through the clearing space, On towards the camp the Cymrian chiefs compel The ardent followers from the tempting chase; Through Crida's ranks to Arthur's side they gain, And blend two streams in one resistless main.
True to his charge as chief, 'mid all disdain 158 Of recreant lithsmen--Harold's iron soul Sees the storm sweep beyond it o'er the plain; And lofty duties, yet on earth, control The yearnings for Walhalla:--Where the day Paled to the burning ships--he tower'd away.
And with him, mournful, drooping, rent and torn, 159 But captive not--the Pale Horse dragg'd its mane. Beside the fire-reflecting waves, forlorn, As ghosts that gaze on Phlegethon--the Thane Saw listless leaning o'er the silent coasts, The spectre wrecks of what at morn were hosts.
Tears rush'd to burning eyes, and choked awhile 160 The trumpet music of his manly voice, At length he spoke: "And are ye then so vile! A death of straw! Is that the Teuton's choice? By all our gods, I hail that reddening sky, And bless the burning fleets which flight deny!
"Lo, yet the thunder clothes the charger's mane, 161 As when it crested Hengist's helmet crown! What ye have lost--an hour can yet regain; Life has no path so short as to renown! Shrunk if your ranks,--when first from Albion's shore Your sires carved kingdoms, were their numbers more?
"If not your valour, let your terrors speak. 162 Where fly?--what path can lead ye from the foes? Where hide?--what cavern will not vengeance seek? What shun ye? Death?--Death smites ye in repose! Back to your king: from Hela snatch the brave-- We best escape, when most we scorn, the grave."
Roused by the words, though half reluctant still, 163 The listless ranks reform their slow array, Sullen but stern they labour up the hill, And gain the brow!--In smouldering embers lay The castled camp, and slanting sunbeams shed Light o'er the victors--quiet o'er the dead.
Hush'd was the roar of war--the conquer'd ground 164 Waved with the glitter of the Cymrian spears; The temple fort the Dragon standard crown'd; And Christian anthems peal'd on Pagan ears; The Mercian halts his bands--their front surveys; No fierce eye kindles to his fiery gaze.
One dull, dishearten'd, but not dastard gloom 165 Clouds every brow,--like men compell'd to die, Who see no hope that can elude the doom, Prepared to fall but powerless to defy. Not those the ranks, yon ardent hosts to face! The Hour had conquer'd earth's all-conquering race.
The leader paused, and into artful show, 166 Doubling the numbers with extended wing; "Here halt," he said, "to yonder hosts I go With terms of peace or war to Cymri's king." He turn'd, and towards the Victor's bright array, With tromp and herald, strode his bitter way.
Before the signs to war's sublime belief 167 Sacred, the host disparts its hushing wave. Moved by the sight of that renowned chief, Joy stills the shout that might insult the brave; And princeliest guides the stately foeman bring, Where Odin's temple shrines the Christian king.
The North's fierce idol, roll'd in pools of blood, 168 Lies crush'd before the Cross of Nazareth. Crouch'd on the splinter'd fragments of their god, Silent as clouds from which the tempest's breath Has gone,--the butchers of the priesthood rest.-- Each heavy brow bent o'er each stony breast.
Apart, the guards of Cymri stand around 169 The haught repose of captive Teuton kings; With eyes disdainful of the chains that bound, And fronts superb--as if defeat but flings A kinglier grandeur over fallen power:-- So suns shine larger in their setting hour.
From these remote, unchain'd, unguarded, leant 170 On the gnarl'd pillar of the fort of pine, The Saturn of the Titan armament, His looks averted from the alter'd shrine Whence iron Doom the antique Faith has hurl'd, For that new Jove who dawns upon the world!
And one broad hand conceal'd the monarch's face; 171 And one lay calm on the low-bended head Of the forgiving child, whose young embrace Clasp'd that grey wreck of Empire! All had fled The heart of pride:--Thrones, hosts, the gods! yea all That scaled the heaven, strew'd Hades with their fall!
But Natural Love, the household melody, 172 Steals through the dearth,--resettling on the breast; The bird returning with the silenced sky, Sings in the ruin, and rebuilds its nest; Home came the Soother that the storm exiled,-- And Crida's hand lay calm upon his child!
Beside her sister saint, Genevra kneeleth, 173 Mourning her father's in her Country's woes; And near her, hushing iron footsteps, stealeth The noblest knight the wondrous Table knows-- Whispering low comfort into thrilling ears-- When Harold's plume floats up the flash of spears.
But the proud Earl, with warning hand and eye, 174 Repels the yearning arms, the eager start; Man amidst men, his haughty thoughts deny To foes the triumph o'er his father's heart; Quickly he turn'd--where shone amidst his ring Of subject planets, the Hyperion King.
There Tristan grateful--Agrafayn uncouth, 175 And Owaine comely with the battle-scar, And Geraint's lofty age, to venturous youth Glory and guide, as to proud ships a star, And Gawaine sober'd to his gravest smile,-- Lean on the spears that lighten through the pile.
There stood the stoic Alemen sedate, 176 Blocks hewn from man, which love with life inspired; There, by the Cross, from eyes serene with Fate, Look'd into space the Mage! and carnage-tired, On AEgis shields, like Jove's still thunders, lay Thine ocean giants, Scandinavia!
But lo, the front, where conquest's auriole 177 Shone, as round Genius marching at the van Of nations;--where the victories of the soul Stamp'd Nature's masterpiece, perfected Man: Fair as young Honour's vision of a king Fit for bold hearts to serve, free lips to sing!
So stood the Christian Prince in Odin's hall, 178 Gathering in one, Renown's converging rays; But, in the hour of triumph, turn, from all War's victor pomp, his memory and his gaze; Miss that last boon the mission should achieve, And rest where droops the dove-like Genevieve.
Now at the sight of Mercia's haughty lord, 179 A loftier grandeur calms yet more his brow; And leaning lightly on his sheathless sword, Listening he stood, while spoke the Earl:--"I bow Not to war's fortune, but the victor's fame; Thine is so large, it shields thy foes from shame.
"Prepared for battle, proffering peace I come; 180 On yonder hills eno' of Saxon steel Remains, to match the Cymrian Christendom; Not slaves with masters, men with men would deal. We cannot leave your land, our chiefs in gyves,-- While chains gall Saxons, Saxon war survives.
"Our kings, our women, and our priests release, 181 And in their name I pledge (no mean return) A ransom worthy of both nations--Peace; Peace with the Teuton! On your hills shall burn No more the beacon; on your fields no more The steed of Hengist plunge its hoofs in gore.
"Peace while this race remains--(our sons, alas, 182 We cannot bind!) Peace with the Mercian men: This is the ransom. Take it, and we pass Friends from a foeman's soil: reject it,--then Firm to this land we cling, as if our own, Till the last Saxon falls, or Cymri's throne!"
Abrupt upon the audience dies the voice, 183 And varying passions stir the murmurous groups; Here, to the wiser; there, the haughtier choice: Youth rears its crest; but age foreboding droops; Chiefs yearn for fame; the crowds to safety cling; The murmurs hush, and thus replies the King:--
"Foe, thy proud speech offends no manly ear. 184 So would I speak, could our conditions change. Peace gives no shame, where war has brought no fear; We fought for freedom,--we disdain revenge; The freedom won, no cause for war remains, And loyal Honour binds more fast than chains.
"The Peace thus proffer'd, with accustom'd rites, 185 Hostage and oath, confirm, ye Teuton kings, And ye are free! Where we, the Christians, fight, Our Valkyrs sail with healing on their wings; We shed no blood but for our fatherland!-- And so, frank soldier, take this soldier's hand!"
Low o'er that conquering hand, the high-soul'd foe 186 Bow'd the war plumed upon his raven crest; Caught from those kingly words, one generous glow Chased Hate's last twilight from each Cymrian breast; Humbled, the captives hear the fetters fall, Power's tranquil shadow--mercy, awes them all!
Dark scowl the Priests;--with vengeance priestcraft dies! 187 Slow looks, where Pride yet struggles, Crida rears; On Crida's child rest Arthur's soft'ning eyes, And Crida's child is weeping happy tears; And Lancelot, closer at Genevra's side, Pales at the compact that may lose the bride.
When from the altar by the holy rood, 188 Come the deep accents of the Cymrian Mage, Sublimely bending o'er the multitude Thought's Atlas temples crown'd with Titan age, O'er Druid robes the beard's broad silver streams, As when the vision rose on virgin dreams.
"Hearken, ye Scythia's and Cimmeria's sons, 189 Whose sires alike by golden rivers dwelt, When sate the Asas on their hunter thrones; When Orient vales rejoiced the shepherd Celt; While EVE'S young races towards each other drawn, Roved lingering round the Eden gates of dawn.
"Still the old brother-bond in these new homes, 190 After long woes shall bind your kindred races; Here, the same God shall find the sacred domes; And the same landmarks bound your resting-places, What time, o'er realms to Heus and Thor unknown, Both Celt and Saxon rear their common throne.
"Meanwhile, revere the Word the viewless Hand 191 Writes on the leaves of kingdom-dooming stars; Through Prydain's Isle of Pines, from sea to land, Where yet Rome's eagle leaves the thunder scars, The sceptre sword of Saxon kings shall reach, And new-born nations speak the Teuton's speech;
"All save thy mountain empire, Dragon King! 192 All save the Cymrian's Ararat--Wild Wales![11] Here Cymrian bards to fame and God shall sing-- Here Cymrian freemen breathe the hardy gales, And the same race that Heus the Guardian led, Rise from these graves--when God awakes the dead!"
The Prophet paused, and all that pomp of plumes 193 Bow'd as the harvest which the south wind heaves, When, while the breeze disturbs, the beam illumes, And blessings gladden in the trembling sheaves. He paused, and thus renew'd: "Thrice happy, ye Founders of shrines and sires of kings to be!
"Hear, Harold, type of the strong Saxon soul, 194 Supple to truth, untameable by force, Thy dauntless blood through Gwynedd's chiefs shall roll,[12] Through Scotland's monarchs take its fiery course, And flow with Arthur's, in the later days, Through Ocean-Caesars, either zone obeys.
"Man of the manly heart, reward the foe 195 Who braved thy sword, and yet forbore thy breast, Who loved thy child, yet could the love forego And give the sire;--thy looks supply the rest, I read thine answer in thy generous glance! Stand forth--bold child of Christian Chevisaunce!"
Then might ye see a sight for smiles and tears, 196 Young Lancelot's hand in Harold's cordial grasp, While from his breast the frank-eyed father rears The cheek that glows beneath the arms that clasp; "Shrink'st thou," he said, "from bonds by fate reveal'd?-- Go--rock my grandson in the Cymrian's shield!"
"And ye," the solemn voice resumed, "O kings! 197 Hearken, Pendragon, son of Odin, hear! There is a mystery in the heart of things, Which Truth and Falsehood seek alike with fear, To Truth from heaven, to Falsehood, breathed from hell, Comes yet to both the unquiet oracle.
"Not vainly, Crida, priest, and rune, and dream, 198 Warn'd thee of fates commingling into one The silver river and the mountain stream; From Odin's daughter and Pendragon's son, Shall rise the royalties of farthest years Born to the birthright of the Saxon spears.
"The bright decree that seem'd a curse to hate, 199 Blesses both races when fulfill'd by love; From Cymri's Dragon England's power shall date, And peace be born to Cymri from the Dove.[13] Eternal links let nuptial garlands weave, And Cymri's queen be Saxon Genevieve!"
Perplex'd, reluctant with the pangs of pride, 200 And shadowy doubts from dark religion thrown, Stern Crida, lingering, turn'd his face aside; Then rise the elders from the idle stone; From fallen chains the kindred Teutons spring, Low murmurs rustle round the moody king;
On priest and warrior, while they whisper, dwells 201 The searching light of that imperious eye; Warrior and priest, the prophet word compels; And overmasters like a destiny-- When towards the maid the radiant conqueror drew, And said, "Enslaver, it is mine to sue!"
To Crida, then, "Proud chief, I do confess 202 The loftier attribute 'tis thine to boast. The pride of kings is in the power to bless, The kingliest hand is that which gives the most; Priceless the gift I ask thee to bestow,-- But doubly royal is a generous foe!"
Then forth--subdued, yet stately, Crida came, 203 And the last hold in that rude heart was won: "Hero, thy conquest makes no more my shame, He shares thy glory who can call thee 'Son!' So may this love-knot bind and bless the lands!" Faltering he spoke--and join'd the plighted hands.
There flock the hosts as to a holy ground, 204 There, where the dove at last may fold the wing! His mission ended, and his labours crown'd, Fair as in fable stands the Dragon King-- Below the Cross, and by his prophet's side, With Carduel's knighthood kneeling round his bride.
What gallant deeds in gentle lists were done, 205 What lutes made joyaunce sweet in jasmine bowers, Let others tell:--Slow sets the summer sun; Slow fall the mists, and closing, droop the flowers; Faint in the gloaming dies the vesper bell,-- And Dream-land sleeps round golden Carduel.
NOTES TO BOOK XII.
1.--Page 417, stanza xl.
"The watch-pass 'Vingolf' wins thee thro' the van.
Vingolf. Literally, "The Abode of Friends;" the name for the place in which the heavenly goddesses assemble.
2.--Page 419, stanza liv.
What rites appease thee, Father of the Slain?
Father of the Slain, Valfader.--Odin.
3.--Page 420, stanza lxiv.
Her sisters tremble at the Urdar spring.
"Her sisters tremble," &c.,--that is, the other two Fates (the Present and the Past) tremble at the Well of Life.
4.--Page 424, stanza lxxxix.
To all the valiant Gladsheim's Halls unclose.
Gladsheim, Heaven: Walhalla ("the Hall of the Chosen") did not exclude brave foes who fell in battle.
5.--Page 425, stanza xcvi.
The Laeca shines beside the bautasten.
The SCIN LAECA, or shining corpse, that was seen before the bautasten, or burial-stone of a dead hero, was supposed to possess prophetic powers, and to guard the treasures of the grave.
6.--Page 429, stanza cxxiii.
Thy post with Odin--mine with Managarm!
Managarm, the Monster Wolf (symbolically, WAR). "He will be filled with the blood of men who draw near their end," &c. (PROSE EDDA).
7.--Page 430, stanza cxxxii.
And the last Fire-God and the Flaming Sword!
"And the last Fire-God and the Flaming Sword," i.e., Surtur the genius, who dwells in the region of fire (Muspelheim), whose flaming sword shall vanquish the gods themselves in the last day. (PROSE EDDA).
8.--Page 431, stanza cxxxv.
And ghastly legends teem with tales of FAUL!
Faul is indeed the name of one of the malignant Powers peculiarly dreaded by the Saxons.
9.--Page 431, stanza cxxxvi.
From the paled ranks, that evil Bode dismay'd.
"Bode," Saxon word for Messenger.
10.--Page 433, stanza clv.
The wings of Muspell to consume the world.
Muspell, Fire; the final destroyer.
11.--Page 439, stanza cxcii.
All save the Cymrian's Ararat--Wild Wales!
"Their Lord they shall praise, And their language they shall preserve; Their land they shall lose, Except Wild Wales!" PROPHECY OF TALIESSIN.
12.--Page 439, stanza cxciv.
Thy dauntless blood through Gwynedd's chiefs shall roll.
This prediction refers to the marriage of the daughter of Griffith ap Llewellyn (Prince of Gwynedd, or North Wales, whose name and fate are not unfamiliar to those who have read the romance of "Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings") with Fleance. From that marriage descended the Stuarts, and indeed the reigning family of Great Britain.
13.--Page 440, stanza cxcix.
_From Cymri's Dragon England's power shall date, And peace be born to Cymri from the Dove._
According to Welch genealogists, Arthur left no son: and I must therefore invite the believer in Merlin's prophecy to suppose that it was by a daughter that Arthur's line was continued, and the royalty of Britain restored to the Cymrian kings, through the House of Tudor; from the accession of which House may indeed be dated both the final and cordial amalgamation of the Welch with the English, and the rise of that power over the destinies of the civilized world, which England has since established. The reader will pardon me, by the way, if I have somewhat perplexed him, now and then, by a similarity between the names of "Genevieve" and "Genevra." Both are used by the writers of the French Fabliaux as synonymous with Guenever; and the more shrewd will perhaps perceive that the reason why the name of Lancelot's mistress has been made almost identical with that of Arthur's, is to vindicate the fidelity of the Cymrian Queen Guenever from that scandal which the levity of French romance has most improperly cast upon it, in connection with Lancelot. It is to be presumed that those ancient slanderers were misled by the confusion of names, and that it was his own Genevra, and not Arthur's Genevieve, who received Lancelot's homage.--But indeed my Lancelot is altogether a different personage from the Lancelot represented in the Fabliaux as Arthur's nephew.
* * * * *
CORN-FLOWERS.
A COLLECTION OF POEMS.
"The Corn-flower opens as the sheaves are rife; Song is the twin of golden Contemplation, The Harvest-flower of life."
NOTE.
Most of the Poems in this First Book have been recently composed, and hitherto unpublished; and those which have appeared before, have been, some materially altered, all carefully revised.
In the Second Book some Poems were written in early life, and have been but little altered; others--chiefly of a more thoughtful character--are of later date, and are now printed for the first time.
CORN-FLOWERS.
I. THE FIRST VIOLETS
Who that has loved knows not the tender tale Which flowers reveal, when lips are coy to tell? Whose youth has paused not, dreaming, in the vale Where the rath violets dwell?
Lo, where they shrink along the lonely brake, Under the leafless melancholy tree; Not yet the cuckoo sings, nor glides the snake, Nor wild thyme lures the bee;
Yet at their sight and scent entranced and thrall'd, All June seems golden in the April skies; How sweet the days we yearn for,--till fulfill'd: O distant Paradise,
Dear Land to which Desire for ever flees; Time doth no present to our grasp allow, Say in the fix'd Eternal shall we seize At last the fleeting Now?
Dream not of days to come--of that Unknown Whither Hope wanders--maze without a clue; Give their true witchery to the flowers;--thine own Youth in their youth renew.
Avarice, remember when the cowslip's gold Lured and yet lost its glitter in thy grasp. Do thy hoards glad thee more than those of old? Those wither'd in thy clasp,
From these thy clasp falls palsied.--It was then That thou wert rich--thy coffers are a lie; Alas, poor fool, Joy is the wealth of men, And Care their penury.
Come, foil'd Ambition, what hast thou desired? Empire and power?--O, wanderer, tempest-tost! These once were thine, when life's gay spring inspired Thy soul with glories lost.
Let the flowers charm thee back to that rich time When golden Dreamland lay within thy chart, When Love bestow'd a realm indeed sublime-- The boundless human heart.
Hark, hark again, the tread of bashful feet! Hark the boughs rustling round the trysting-place! Let air again with one dear breath be sweet, Earth fair with one dear face.
Brief-lived first flowers--first love! The hours steal on To prank the world in summer's pomp of hue, But what can flaunt beneath a fiercer sun Worth what we lose in you?
Oft by a flower, a leaf, in some loved book We mark the lines that charm us most;--Retrace Thy life;--recall its loveliest passage;--Look, Dead violets keep the place!
THE IMAGE ON THE TIDE.
Not a sound is heard But my heart by thine, Breathe not a word, Lay thy hand in mine.
How trembling, yet still, On the lake's clear tide, Sleep the distant hill, And the bank beside.
The near and the far, Intermingled flow; The herb and the star Imaged both below.
So deep and so clear, Through the shadowy light, The far and the near In my soul unite;
The future and past, Like the bank and hill, On the surface glass'd, Though they tremble still;
Disturb not the dream Of this double whole; The heav'n in the stream On my soul thy soul.
The sense cannot count (As the waters glass The forest and mount And the clouds that pass)
The shadows and gleams In that stilly deep, Like the tranquil dreams Of a hermit's sleep.
One shadow alone On my soul doth fall,-- And yet in the one It reflects on All.
IS IT ALL VANITY?
Doubting of life, my spirit paused perplext Let fall its fardell of laborious care, And the sharp cry of my great trouble vext Unsympathizing air.
Out on this choice of unrewarded toil, This upward path into the realm of snow! Oh for one glimpse of the old happy soil Fragrant with flowers below!
For what false gold, like alchemists, we yearn, Wasting the wealth we never can recall, Joy and life's lavish prime;--and our return? Ashes, cold ashes, all!
Could youth but dream what narrow burial-urns Hopes that went forth to conquer worlds should hold, How in a tomb the lamp Experience burns Amidst the dust of old!--
Look back, how all the beautiful Ideal, Sporting in doubtful moonlight, one by one Fade from the rising of the hard-eyed Real, Like Fairies from the sun.
Love render'd saintlike by its pure devotion; Knowledge exulting lone by shoreless seas And Feelings tremulous to each emotion, As May leaves to the breeze.
And, oh, that grand Ambition, poet-nurst, When boyhood's heart swells up to the Sublime, And on the gaze the towers of Glory first Flash from the peaks of Time!
Are they then wiser who but nurse the growth Of joys in life's most common element, Creeping from hour to hour in that calm sloth Which Egoists call "Content?"
Who freight for storms no hopeful argosy, Who watch no beacon wane on hilltops grey, Who bound their all, where from the human eye The horizon fades away?
Alas for Labour, if indeed more wise To drink life's tide unwitting where it flows; Renounce the arduous palm, and only prize The Cnidian vine and rose!
Out from the Porch the Stoic cries "For shame!" What hast thou left us, Stoic, in thy school? "That pain or pleasure is but in the name?" Go, prick thy finger, fool!
Never grave Pallas, never Muse severe Charm'd this hard life like the free, zoneless Grace; Pleasure is sweet, in spite of every sneer On Zeno's wrinkled face.
What gain'd and left ye to this age of ours Ye early priesthoods of the Isis, Truth,-- When light first glimmer'd from the Cuthite's towers; When Thebes was in her youth?
When to the weird Chaldaean spoke the seer, When Hades open'd at Heraclean spells, When Fate made Nature her interpreter In leaves and murmuring wells?
When the keen Greek chased flying Science on, Upward and up the infinite abyss?-- Like perish'd stars your arts themselves have gone Noiseless to nothingness!
And what is knowledge but the Wizard's ring, Kindling a flame to circumscribe a ground? The belt of light that lures the spirit's wing Hems the invoker round.
Ponder and ask again "what boots our toil?" Can we the Garden's wanton child gainsay, When from kind lips he culls their rosy spoil And lives life's holiday?
Life answers "No--if ended here be life, Seize what the sense can give--it is thine all; Disarm thee, Virtue, barren is thy strife; Knowledge, thy torch let fall.
"Seek thy lost Psyche, yearning Love, no more! Love is but lust, if soul be only breath; Who would put forth one billow from the shore If the great sea be--Death?"
But if the soul, that slow artificer For ends its instinct rears from life hath striven, Feeling beneath its patient webwork stir Wings only freed in Heaven,
Then and but then to toil is to be wise; Solved is the riddle of the grand desire Which ever, ever, for the Distant sighs, And must perforce aspire.
Rise, then, my soul, take comfort from thy sorrow; Thou feel'st thy treasure when thou feel'st thy load; Life without thought, the day without the morrow, God on the brute bestow'd;
Longings obscure as for a native clime, Flight from what is to live in what may be, God gave the Soul.--Thy discontent with Time Proves thine eternity.
THE TRUE JOY-GIVER.
Oh Oevoe, liber Pater, Oh, the vintage feast divine, When the God was in the bosom And his rapture in the wine;
When the Faun laugh'd out at morning; When the Maenad hymn'd the night; And the Earth itself was drunken With the worship of delight;
Oh Oevoe, liber Pater, Whose orgies are upon The hilltops of Parnassus, The banks of Helicon;--
How often have I hail'd thee! How often have I been The bearer of the thyrsus, When its wither'd leaves were green.
Then the boughs were purple gleaming With the dewdrop and the star; And chanting came the wood-nymph, And flashing came the car.
Long faded are the garlands Of the thyrsus that I bore, When the wood-nymph chanted "Follow" In the vintage-feast of yore.
My vineyards are the richest Falernian slopes bestow; Has the vineherd lost his cunning? Has the summer lost its glow?
Oh, never on Falernium The Care-Dispeller trod, Its vine-leaves wreathe no thyrsus, Its fruits allure no god.
For ever young, Lyaeus; For ever young his priest; The Boy-god of the Morning, The conqueror of the East,
His wine is Nature's life-blood; His vineyards bloom upon The hilltops of Parnassus, The banks of Helicon.
But the hilltops of Parnassus Are free to every age; I have trod them with the Poet, I have mapp'd them with the Sage;
And I'll take my pert disciple To see, with humble eyes, How the Gladness-bringer honours The worship of the wise.
Lo, the arching of the vine-leaves; Lo, the sparkle of the fount; Hark, the carol of the Maenads; Lo, the car is on the Mount!
"Ho, room, ye thyrsus-bearers, Your playmate I have been!" "Go, madman," laughs Lyaeus, "Thy thyrsus then was green."
And adown the gleaming alleys The gladness-givers glide; And the wood-nymph murmurs "Follow," To the young man by my side.
BELIEF; THE UNKNOWN LANGUAGE.
AN IDYLL.
By summer-reeds a music murmur'd low, And straight the Shepherd-age came back to me; When idylls breathed where Himera's waters flow, Or on the Hoemus hill, or Rhodope;[A]
As when the swans, by Moschus heard at noon, Mourn'd their lost Bion on the Thracian streams;[B] Or when Simaethea murmur'd to the moon Of Myndian Delphis,[C]--old Sicilian themes.
Then softly turning, on the margent-slope Which back as clear translucent waters gave, Behold, a Shape as beautiful as Hope, And calm as Grief, bent, singing o'er the wave.
To the sweet lips, sweet music seem'd a thing Natural as perfume to the violet. All else was silent; not a zephyr's wing Stirr'd from the magic of the charmer's net.
What was the sense beneath the silver tone? What the fine chain that link'd the floating measure? Not mine, to say,--the language was unknown, And sense was lost in undistinguish'd pleasure.
Pleasure, dim-shadow'd with a gentle pain As twilight Hesper with a twilight shroud; Or like the balm of a delicious rain Press'd from the fleeces of a summer cloud.
When the song ceased, I knelt before the singer And raised my looks to soft and childlike eyes, Sighing? "What fountain, O thou nectar-bringer Feeds thy full urn with golden melodies?
"Interpret sounds, O Hebe of the soul, Oft heard, methinks, in Ida's starry grove, When to thy feet the charmed eagle stole, And the dark thunder left the brows of Jove!"
Smiling, the Beautiful replied to me, And still the language flow'd in words unknown; Only in those pure eyes my sense could see How calm the soul that so perplex'd my own.
And while she spoke, symphonious murmurs rose; Dryads from trees, Nymphs murmur'd from the rills; Murmur'd Maenalian Pan from dim repose In the lush coverts of Pelasgic hills;
Murmur'd the voice of Chloris in the flower; Bent, murmuring from his car, Hyperion; Each thing regain'd the old Presiding Power, And spoke,--and still the language was unknown.
Dull listener, placed amidst the harmonious Whole, Hear'st thou no voice to sense divinely dark? The sweetest sounds that wander to the soul Are in the Unknown Language.--Pause, and hark!
[A] Theocrit. Id. 7.
[B] Mosch, Id. 3; Epitaph on Bion.
[C] Theocrit. Id. 2.
THE PILGRIM OF THE DESERT.
Wearily flaggeth my Soul in the Desert; Wearily, wearily. Sand, ever sand, not a gleam of the fountain; Sun, ever sun, not a shade from the mountain; Wave after wave flows the sea of the Desert, Drearily, drearily.
Life dwelt with life in my far native valleys, Nightly and daily; Labour had brothers to aid and beguile; A tear for my tear, and a smile for my smile; And the sweet human voices rang out; and the valleys Echoed them gaily.
Under the almond-tree, once in the spring-time, Careless reclining; The sigh of my Leila was hush'd on my breast, As the note of the last bird had died in its nest; Calm look'd the stars on the buds of the spring-time, Calm--but how shining!
Below on the herbage there darken'd a shadow; Stirr'd the boughs o'er me; Dropp'd from the almond-tree, sighing, the blossom; Trembling the maiden sprang up from my bosom; Then the step of a stranger came mute through the shadow, Pausing before me.
He stood grey with age in the robe of a Dervise, As a king awe-compelling; And the cold of his eye like the diamond was bright, As if years from the hardness had fashion'd the light, "A draught from thy spring for the way-weary Dervise, And rest in thy dwelling."
And my herds gave the milk, and my tent gave the shelter; And the stranger spell-bound me With his tales, all the night, of the far world of wonder, Of the ocean of Oman with pearls gleaming under; And I thought, "O, how mean are the tents' simple shelter And the valleys around me!"
I seized as I listen'd, in fancy, the treasures By Afrites conceal'd; Scared the serpents that watch in the ruins afar O'er the hoards of the Persian in lost Chil-Menar;-- Alas! ill that night happy youth had more treasures Than Ormus can yield.
Morn came, and I went with my guest through the gorges In the rock hollow'd; The flocks bleated low as I pass'd them ungrieving, The almond-buds strew'd the sweet earth I was leaving; Slowly went Age through the gloom of the gorges, Lightly Youth follow'd.
We won through the Pass--the Unknown lay before me, Sun-lighted and wide; Then I turn'd to my guest, but how languid his tread, And the awe I had felt in his presence was fled, And I cried, "Can thy age in the journey before me Still keep by my side?"
"Hope and Wisdom soon part; be it so," said the Dervise, "My mission is done." As he spoke, came the gleam of the crescent and spear, Chimed the bells of the camel more sweet and more near;-- "Go, and march with the Caravan, youth," sigh'd the Dervise, "Fare thee well!"--he was gone.
What profits to speak of the wastes I have traversed Since that early time? One by one the procession, replacing the guide, Have dropp'd on the sands, or have stray'd from my side; And I hear never more in the solitudes traversed The camel-bell's chime.
How oft I have yearn'd for the old happy valley, But the sands have no track; He who scorn'd what was near must advance to the far, Who forsaketh the landmark must march by the star, And the steps that once part from the peace of the valley Can never come back.
So on, ever on, spreads the path of the Desert, Wearily, wearily; Sand, ever sand--not a gleam of the fountain; Sun, ever sun--not a shade from the mountain; As a sea on a sea, flows the width of the Desert, Drearily, drearily.
How narrow content, and how infinite knowledge! Lost vale, and lost maiden! Enclosed in the garden the mortal was blest: A world with its wonders lay round him unguest; That world was his own when he tasted of knowledge-- Was it worth Aden?
THE KING AND THE WRAITH.
KING.
Who art thou, who art thou, indistinct as the spray Rising up from a torrent in vapour and cloud? Ghastly Phantom, obscuring the splendour of day And enveloped in awe, as a corpse with a shroud?
WRAITH.
King, my form is thy shade, And my life is thy breath; Lo, thy likeness display'd In the mirror of Death!
KING.
My veins are as ice! 'Tis my voice that I hear! 'Tis my form coming forth from the cloud that I see! My voice?--can its sound be so dread to my ear? My form?--can myself be so loathly to me?
WRAITH.
Never Man comes in sight Of himself till the last; In the flicker of light When the fuel is past!
KING.
Nay, avaunt, lying Spectre, my fears are dispell'd, For the likeness that fool'd me is fading away, And I see, where the shape of a king was beheld, But the coil of an earthworm that creeps into clay.
WRAITH.
As thy shade I began; As thyself I depart; And thy last looks, O Man, See the worm that thou art!
LOVE AND DEATH.
O Strong as the eagle, O mild as the dove, How like and how unlike O Death and O Love!
Knitting earth to the heaven, The near to the far, With the step in the dust, And the eye on the star.
Ever changing your symbols Of light or of gloom; Now the rue on the altar, The rose on the tomb.
From Love, if the infant Receiveth his breath, The love that gave life Yields a subject to Death.
When Death smites the aged, Escaping above Flies the soul re-deliver'd By Death unto Love.
And therefore in wailing We enter on life; And therefore in smiling Depart from its strife.
Thus Love is best known By the tears it has shed; And Death's surest sign Is the smile of the dead.
The purer the spirit, The clearer its view, The more it confoundeth The shapes of the two;
For, if thou lov'st truly, Thou canst not dissever The grave from the altar, The Now from the Ever;
And if, nobly hoping, Thou gazest above, In Death thou beholdest The aspect of LOVE.
THE POET TO THE DEAD.
I. RETROSPECTION FROM THE HALTING-PLACE
Let me pause, for I am weary, Weary of the trodden ways; And the landscape spreads more dreary Where it stretches from my gaze.
Many a prize I deem'd a blessing When I started for the goal, Midway in the course possessing Adds a burthen to the soul.
By the thorn that scantly shadeth From the sloped sun reclin'd, Let me look, before it fadeth On the eastern hill behind;--
On the hill that life ascended, While the dewy morn was young; While the mist with light contended And the early skylark sung.
Then, as when at first united, Rose together Love and Day; Nature with her sun was lighted, And my soul with Viola!
O my young earth's lost Immortal! Naiad vanish'd from the streams! Eve, torn from me at the portal Of my Paradise of Dreams!
On thy name, with lips that quiver, With a voice that chokes, I call.-- Well! the cave may hide the river, But the ocean merges all.
Yet, if but in self-deceiving, Can no magic charm thy shade? Come unto my human grieving, Come, but as the human maid!
By the fount where love was plighted Where the lone wave glass'd the skies; By the hands that once united; By the welcome of the eyes;
By the silence sweetly broken When the full heart murmur'd low, And with sighs the words were spoken Ere the later tears did flow;
By the blush and soft confession; By the wanderings side by side; By the love-denied possession; And the heavenlier, so denied;
By the faith yet undiverted; By the worship sacred yet; To the soul so long deserted, Come, as when of old we met;
Blooming as my youth beheld thee In the trysting-place of yore,-- Hark a footfall! I have spell'd thee, Lo, thy living smile once more!