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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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THE FINDING OF PHEIDIPPIDES 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
THE 
 
 FINDING OF PHEIDIPPIDES 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 EY 
 
 EDWARD HENRY PEMBER 
 
 LONDON 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CHISWICK PRESS 
 
 FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION 
 
 i go i 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Finding of Pheidippides . . . i 
 
 Watches of the Night ... 39 
 
 On the Threshold 44 
 
 Pausanias and Cleonice ... . . -47 
 
 A Vigil 93 
 
 Dawn 97 
 
 L'Inferno. Cantos I. to IV 99 
 
 De Profundis 131 
 
 Clouds 134 
 
 I Due Calici 135 
 
 Songs : 
 
 La Plaints du Berger ... .141 
 
 At Arm's Length 144 
 
 A Serenade 146 
 
 A Storm .... 147 
 
 Written to a Swiss Tune 148 
 
 Love Me for Ever 151 
 
 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir 153 
 
THE FINDING OF PHEIDIPPIDES. 
 
I inscribe this Poem to my friend, 
 
 W. J. Courthope Esq., C.B. 
 
 late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, 
 who suggested the subject to me, and to whom for a 
 similar reason, and but for an inadvertence, I should 
 have dedicated my " Death-Song of Thamyris." 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 I have been asked to tell all I know about Pheidippides, 
 that famous Athenian runner, who carried in two days from 
 Athens to Sparta, a distance of 1 50 miles, the news of the 
 Persian landing at Marathon ; who was met by Pan on his 
 way back, was promised the assistance of the God on behalf 
 of the Greeks, and mysteriously disappears from history after 
 that achievement. 
 
 Now it so happens, that, no matter how or when — as St. 
 Paul says, " whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot 
 tell " — I found myself travelling from Sparta to Argos, and 
 fell in with a young Athenian noble, who, in some state, with 
 a retinue of servants and sumpter-horses, was making the 
 same journey. A glance at him showed his amazing beauty 
 of person, and a brief talk with him the brilliance and cultiva- 
 tion of his mind. I did not take so favourable an impression 
 of his moral character, but that was unlikely to affect the 
 pleasure of a temporary acquaintance, and so, when he asked 
 me to join his company, I gladly consented. He told me 
 that he was to make a detour of some miles in order to visit 
 a remarkable old man, an octogenarian, who was stated con- 
 fidently by some of his friends in Sparta to be this very 
 Pheidippides. 
 
 The story ran that at the close of the last Persian war the 
 great runner had emigrated from Athens to Arcadia, in order 
 to cultivate, in the God's own province, his gratitude to and 
 reverence for Pan, whom he regarded as the saviour of his 
 
6 Argument. 
 
 country. It struck me that my young companion — who told 
 me, by the way, that he was only eighteen years of age, and 
 that his name was Alcibiades — was actuated rather by vanity 
 and the hope to gain credit for his discovery on his return to 
 Athens, than by any sentiment of respectful pilgrimage. 
 
 We duly arrived at the home of the illustrious exile, and 
 found that he was indeed the lost Pheidippides. We saw a 
 venerable figure, in surroundings which indicated at once a 
 philosophic retirement and a modest affluence. The explana- 
 tion which my young friend gave of his own lineage proved 
 an immediate passport. Pheidippides had been the friend of 
 his grandfather, and received him with open arms. He was 
 good enough to extend his welcome to me. No sooner had 
 we refreshed ourselves than Alcibiades gave the reins to his 
 curiosity, and drew from our aged host a full narrative, not 
 only of his great adventure, but of the motive and occupations 
 of his exile. 
 
 It seems that he fought at Marathon, married a lady to 
 whom he had been early betrothed, that she died, and that 
 he thereupon, having vainly courted death at Artemisium, 
 Salamis, and Plataea, conceived so keen a distaste for public 
 life that he determined to seek consolation in rural retirement. 
 His memory of Pan led him to select a spot upon the lower 
 slopes of Mount Parthenium. There he had lived, cultivating 
 the worship of the Deity who had so distinguished him, learn- 
 ing, as he told us, to see the divine life in natural objects, 
 and striving by precept and example to elevate and sweeten 
 the lives of the peasants among whom he had fixed his home. 
 
 His story was somewhat long and elaborate, broken at 
 whiles by the interjected impertinences of the shallow but 
 brilliant Alcibiades. I listened silently, not only much im- 
 pressed by the interesting character of the narrative, but also 
 struck beyond measure by the contrast between the two per- 
 sonages before me. The one aged, calm, dignified, perhaps 
 
Argument. 7 
 
 a little pompous ; moral even to rigidity, simple, reverent, 
 and wise. The other young, rash, dangerous, without scruple 
 or reserve ; specious, rapid, and brilliant, lacking all sense of 
 duty and faculty of veneration. It was obvious that the old 
 man saw through the young one at the first glance ; and pro- 
 bably he only bore with him from a sense of hospitality due 
 to the representative of a family with which he had been 
 closely intimate in time past. 
 
 Towards the close of our long interview a large company 
 of villagers of both sexes presented themselves at the Temple 
 of Pan hard by. They were holding some simple festival of 
 the God, and had come with songs and offerings. The 
 Maidens first sang a hymn, as I remember, in praise of Sum- 
 mer; then the Youths followed with another more directly 
 addressed to the God himself; and lastly the old men sang a 
 pleasantly-conceived canticle, expressing their own content 
 with old age, and their acquiescence in the approach of decay 
 and death. 
 
 I think that my young companion, while he continued to 
 avow his interest, had in reality become somewhat weary of 
 this rustic display. He suddenly took occasion to espy his 
 equipage, and, as I thought a little abruptly, took his leave 
 of our venerable entertainer. 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 Scene, in the Portico of a House upon one of 
 the Slopes of Mount Parthenium. 
 
 PERSONAGES. 
 
 Alcibiades, the Athenian, jEtat. 18. 
 
 Pheidippides, the Athenian, *etat. 78. 
 
 Villagers. Youths, Maidens, and Old People of both 
 
 Sexes. 
 
 A Temple of Pan hard by. 
 
THE FINDING OF PHEIDIPPIDES. 
 
 Alcibiad.es. 
 A ND art thou truly that Pheidippides 
 
 All men deemed dead ? 
 Pheidippides. Ay, truly I am he ; 
 
 And men did well to deem that I was dead ; 
 For dead I have been long, and still shall be, 
 To Athens and her world. Yet not the less 
 Am I well pleased to welcome thee ; I knew 
 And loved thy grandsire in his youth and mine ; 
 And for his sake, and for thy courtesy 
 In coming here, am ready to love thee. 
 
 Ale. I thank thee, and my heart is all astir 
 With more than thanks ; but there are times when 
 
 speech 
 Is stricken mute by feeling, like a man 
 Who stands before some portent, face to face, 
 Among the hills or by the lowland sea. 
 
 Pheid. [Laughing.'] No portent I, but yet I take 
 thy drift. 
 
i o The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 Men, like to stones that fall into the hands 
 
 Of some divinely-taught artificer, 
 
 Who circles their inferiority 
 
 With adventitious excellence, become 
 
 More famous, from their setting than themselves : 
 
 And such am I. As we both know, 'tis true 
 
 That in two wondrous days and nights, when war 
 
 Knit muscles and strung nerves through Attica, 
 
 Till with our poor ten thousand harvesters 
 
 We mowed the Persian sheaves at Marathon, 
 
 I ran from Athens to cold Sparta's gates, 
 
 To bring the message of the Persian landing. 
 
 A dozen other youths had done the like, 
 
 Had the need been ; and that which made my fame 
 
 Might well have happened unto whom you will. 
 
 Pan met with me. 
 
 Ale. Ah, but Pan chose the man ! 
 
 'Tis true, we differ through the choice of Heaven ; 
 But then, the choice ! And now, unless there be 
 Aught impious in my asking or thy telling, 
 Say what befell thee. 
 
 Pheid. Son of Cleinias, 
 
 'Twere no impiety in me to tell 
 Alike both what I saw and what I heard ; 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 1 1 
 
 For so He charged me ; but, thyself, beware 
 Lest thou, of levity alone, indulge 
 Thine own irreverent and careless youth 
 With knowledge of a new and hidden thing, 
 Enquiring thus ; the Gods have little love 
 For such as pry, and spy, and worship not. 
 
 Ale. Nay, I would know ; 'twere something in 
 the clash 
 Of philosophic conflict, amid doubt 
 And logic, 'gainst the laughter of the Schools 
 To set the tale, told in his serious age, 
 Of one who hath held converse with a God. 
 
 Pheid. Then shalt thou hear; doubtless thou 
 knowest well 
 How Sparta, whether clinging to old forms, 
 As her wont is, or shrinking to come forth 
 And risk her all for Athens — I know not- 
 Refused to march till after a full moon. 
 I started, charged with her untoward reply. 
 Caryse I passed, and Tegea, and had left 
 Pallantium to the west ; but cast mine eyes 
 E'en as I ran, with clenched hands at my breast, 
 On distant Maenalus, whose snowy tops, 
 As I bethought me, are so often roused 
 
1 2 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 By Pan's gay hunting calls ; nor less at eve 
 Are soothed by gentler echoes from below, 
 Whene'er he draweth, idling through the pines, 
 And musing on lost Syrinx 'neath the moon, 
 Long music from the stepped and tuneful reeds 
 He named for love of her. My path had led 
 By meads and cornlands, over flowery slopes 
 Studded with olives, through grave chestnut 
 
 woods 
 Made gay with music of the cattle-bells ; 
 And now was battling with the sterner ridge, 
 That wards Arcadia from Argolis. 
 Steep rose it through an upland pasture set 
 With mossy boulders ; low the herbage grew, 
 Wind swept, close nibbled by the mountain goats ; 
 But wheresoe'er the nooks gave shelter, sprang 
 Blue aconite and thistles creamy-topped, 
 Tufting the hollows ; for awhile perforce 
 I clomb with hand and foot, again at whiles 
 Paused, glancing upward to assure my way. 
 When on a sudden, lo, the God himself, 
 The son of Hermes and swart Dryope, 
 The pride of Pelops' Isle, Arcadian born, 
 Stood fronting me. 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. i 
 
 o 
 
 Ale. Great Zeus ; and thou wert firm ? 
 
 I should have fled ! 
 
 Pheid. I had no fear of him ; 
 
 His apparition was all kindliness ; 
 And as I gazed, I felt his favour given 
 To mark him unreproved. 
 
 Ale. His face, his form, 
 
 Give me his portraiture ! 
 
 Pheid. His horns and hoofs, 
 
 Translucent, delicately gleamed, as though 
 Illumined from within ; unnumbered hues 
 They showed, as glow those iridescent shells 
 Wherein the pearl lies buried ; every tint 
 Of leaves they took and flowers, or of the sky 
 Decked out by Eos or by Hespera : 
 Crisp ringlets clung about his shapely limbs, 
 Lustrous, and softer than the cygnet's down, 
 Clothing them as the Summer loves to clothe 
 Broad reaches of the bosom of the Earth 
 With dimpling softness of the heather bloom, 
 Ere yet the Sun hath loved it overmuch, 
 And parched its purple with his fevered kisses. 
 
 Ale. Well told, well told, and wondrous as well 
 told! 
 
1 4 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 Pheid. Hjs mien was staid and gentle, and his 
 
 brows 
 And ruddy cheeks spread smooth with health and 
 
 power ; 
 While in his gait erect, his glance, his smile, 
 And motions native to his form, shone forth 
 The dignity and ease of life divine. 
 He bent on me the beam of serious eyes, 
 And said : " Pheidippides of Attica, 
 I know thy zeal, thine errand, and its issue ; 
 Tell them of Athens how I met with thee 
 Here on Parthenium ; bid them nought abate 
 Of high resolve in facing perilous odds, 
 Though Sparta be half fearful and half false. 
 I will be there, and fighting, spread the fear 
 That men have named of me among the Medes ; 
 So that ten thousand shall confound and scatter 
 Ten times ten thousand, chasing and slaying them 
 Far over fennel-feathered Marathon, 
 Among the swamps and sandhills of her Bay. 
 This will I do, though they have slighted me, 
 Me a great God, and I be pained thereby ; 
 For pain it is when men whom we have loved 
 Repay us not with worship, gift, or prayer. 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 1 5 
 
 Go thou, fight too ; I will sustain thy life ; 
 Then come thou back, and learn my worship here." 
 All this I heard with downcast eyes ; he ceased ; 
 I looked, and he was gone. 
 
 Ale. What didst thou then ? 
 
 My yearning to dig deep in unsearched veins 
 Of human feeling hath outstripped thy tale. 
 
 Pheid. Our light-cast yearnings are as perils 
 sown; 
 Their roots work havoc in the hearts they rend ; 
 Their fruit, brought home, is but as garnered ruin. 
 Accept this warning from thy grandsire's friend, 
 Fair youth ; thy beauty, wealth, impetuous soul, 
 Like laughing Damons wait upon thy ways, 
 Albeit thou deem'st them gifts of the great Gods. 
 I tremble lest thou ne'er may'st reach the goal 
 Of calm old age. 
 
 Ale. My father, whom the Gods 
 
 Love best die soonest, saith the Sage. 
 
 Pheid. Not so : 
 
 I know well how Pan loved me, and my years 
 Approach fourscore ; it cannot well be good 
 To lose all further chance of living well. 
 
 Ale. But what of living ill ? 
 
1 6 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 Pheid. That chance is thine, 
 
 I fear me, feverish boy ; so guard thee well ; 
 Mistake not heat of blood for health of heart, 
 Nor sweep of untamed will for force of soul. 
 Were souls as matter, thine, for good or ill, 
 Would spirt forth energy from all its pores. 
 Thou art of those who mould themselves ; see to it, 
 Lest thou come forth misshapen and awry. 
 Thyself will be thy leader from thy start ; 
 Lead not thyself astray. Errors that spring 
 Of others' teaching are but flimsy weeds 
 Our own growth overgrows ; seeds sown of doom 
 Are those of our own planting ; forests these 
 Whose summits hide the sun, and whose fell roots 
 Make barren all the lost expanse below. 
 
 Ale. I hold thy warning precious as thy love ; 
 And never yet hath Alcibiades 
 Divorced good counsel from good will ; for thee, 
 Be sure that all thou hast to tell will fall 
 On ears, perchance too greedy, but which feed 
 A heart that lieth deep, and will digest 
 True profit in the hearing. 
 
 Pheid. Firstj I paused, 
 
 Gazing around me ; then, the solitude, 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 1 7 
 
 That sense I had not felt before he came, 
 So keen was I upon mine errand, swept 
 Like a wild wind about me, and a horror 
 His presence had not roused, his very loss 
 Awakened ; panting hard I scaled the ridge, 
 And down the further steep from stone to stone 
 Plunged shuddering, till I reached a lawny slope, 
 Then fled in terror to the pines below ; 
 Dreading I know not what, but glancing back, 
 As one by haunting hostile shapes pursued, 
 Though seeing nought. 
 
 Ale. Perchance 'twas Pan himself 
 
 Who smote thee, willing thou shouldst learn by 
 
 proof, 
 With what all-powerful amazement He 
 Would sweep the Persian hosts o'er Marathon. 
 And thou didst fight at Marathon ? 
 
 Plieid. I fought, 
 
 And Pan preserved me ; when their battle turned, 
 Hither and thither through the mighty wreck 
 I flew, all heedless, pausing not to slay, 
 Nor aught in fear ; but shouting " Pan ! 'Tis Pan ! 
 Arcadian Pan, who loveth hills and vales, 
 Great son of Hermes and proud Dryope, 
 c 
 
1 8 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 The mighty haunter of the mountain tops ! 
 
 Ye men of Athens, he is in your midst, 
 
 And warreth for the right ! Smite on, smite on !" 
 
 And where I passed the cry of " Saviour Pan " 
 
 Was borne from company to company, 
 
 As through the yielding foe they swooped and 
 
 struck, 
 Like eagles among lambs. 
 
 Ale. Ah, Marathon 
 
 Was of those days that go to furnish Time. 
 But what of Pan ? 
 
 Pheid. My tale had done its work. 
 
 The Persians gone, our great Miltiades 
 Set up his marble image in that cave, 
 Hard by the mystic fount of Empedo, 
 Below th' Acropolis ; where Phoebus stands, 
 And where men say he wrought his violent will 
 Upon that shrieking and reluctant maid, 
 Creusa, old Erectheus' child ; there Pan 
 Dwells now, a sharer in its holy shades, 
 And there doth Athens duly worship him. 
 
 Ale. But of thyself? Thou didst not turn thy 
 back 
 On Athens and her life, so fraught, so full, 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 1 9 
 
 To make thy living tomb among these wilds, 
 Straight after Marathon ? 
 
 Pheid. Nay, boy ; my love 
 
 Both for the life thou namest, and for one 
 Dearer to me than Athens, held me there. 
 She died, just when the news ran through the land 
 That haughty Xerxes with his Asian hordes 
 Had yoked the Hellespont. In hope of death 
 I sailed to Artemisium, then turned 
 To Salamis, and at Plataea fought, 
 And yet came home unscathed. My hearth was 
 
 cold, 
 And my heart desolate ; I had lost all love 
 For action and the turmoil of the town ; 
 And in my solitary wanderings 
 As scout and runner ; over many a vale, 
 By many a sunny mountain-path, I marked 
 Their placid villages beyond the pale 
 Of devastating war, too often waged 
 For worse than nought ; I saw the life unstirred 
 By clash of civic faction, feverish greed, 
 And laboured lies of party strife ; where Peace, 
 Rough Plenty, and the worship of the Gods, 
 Gave, or might give 'neath some slight tutelage 
 
20 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 Of headship new, a fairer grace than aught 
 That cometh of our soiled and stifling lives 
 In cities ; and I longed for harbour there, 
 Among them, if not of them. 
 
 Ale. Just when life 
 
 Was rounding to the fulness of its moon, 
 To dote on an eclipse ! 
 
 Pheid. Then too, the love 
 
 Of Earth and all her beauties, stored in haste, 
 Like wild fruits snatched in passing, as I ran, 
 Worked like a leaven in me. How I marked 
 The changing folds of mountain chains ; the dance 
 Of rivers down their gorges ; mastered sheets 
 Of sober reeds that failed to keep the lakes 
 From laughing with their playmate breezes; breadths 
 Of flowery plain with here and there a herd 
 As ruddy as their roses ; uplands streaked 
 By fleecy bands ; and all the wealth and warmth 
 Of vineyard, cornland, oliveyard, and byre ! 
 All these I grew to love, and with their love 
 Sprang worship, and a mystic sense of powers, 
 Life, motives, qualities, joy, suffering, 
 That lay perchance behind this visible world ; 
 An all-pervading and inspiring soul, 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 2 1 
 
 Dowering all things and dominating all. 
 
 Ale. Thou talkest much as Socrates hath talked, 
 While he and I have wandered hour by hour, 
 Lost in discourse among the olive trees 
 Of scant Uyssus, or lain couched in shade 
 Among the rocks where Sunium courts the sea. 
 
 Pheid. Then longing rose, through many a silent 
 march, 
 For one more sight of Pan ; the homely God, 
 True monarch of the wild and wanton Earth ; 
 Who holdeth not Olympus half so dear 
 As hill and vale, and hunt, or dances gay 
 Of Oreads in the moonlight, while he glides 
 Tossing his lynx-hide cape among their robes, 
 And mates the movement of their merry feet 
 To tuneful pipes about the flowery sward. 
 
 Ale. And so thou didst bethink thee at the last, 
 How he had bidden thee come back, and learn 
 His worship here ? 
 
 Pheid. 'Twas so ; and here I dwell. 
 
 Ale. And what hath been thy place among these 
 folk? 
 
 Pheid. Friend, teacher, comrade, ruler it may be, 
 But beyond all things, friend. They saw in me, 
 
22 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 When first I came among them, one who sought 
 
 Rest and no more ; my shows of modest wealth 
 
 Assured them ; and my weariness of soul 
 
 Worked, as it ever doth among the poor, 
 
 Wide welcome ; month by month, and year by year, 
 
 My power among them prospered ; I have tamed 
 
 Rude appetites and rougher manners ; ranged 
 
 Their customs into semblances of law ; 
 
 Have taught them thrift, and wiser husbandry ; 
 
 Their women spin their fleeces, and their men 
 
 Have learned the builder's, potter's, joiner's, crafts, 
 
 Till homes with many a touch of beauty in them 
 
 Smile o'er the vale in plenty ; last not least, 
 
 I made them songs, teaching them how to sing 
 
 With music, and the beat of rhythmic dance. 
 
 Temples I built, and before all to Pan. 
 
 And something of the knowledge and the love 
 
 Of that mysterious and inner life, 
 
 Whereof I spake to thee, and which thou sa/st 
 
 Thy friend proclaimeth, I have taught to them. 
 
 Ale. Stay, list; surely I catch the sound of flute 
 And pipe below us in the valley ? 
 
 Pheid. True ; 
 
 To day is held in festival ; they come, 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 23 
 
 Maidens, and youths, and old folk, bearing gifts 
 Of fruits and flowers, and singing choric songs 
 For joy that it is summer time again. 
 They will be here anon ; Pan's altar stands 
 A stone's throw from my door, and we shall hear 
 Their chaunts, and see their offerings. Stand here. 
 They form two bands, Maidens and Youths alike, 
 Each with its leader, and these sing their staves 
 In Amoebaeic fashion ; the old folks 
 Are grouped together with a single songster. 
 The Hymns are mine, remember. Hark, they 
 start. 
 
 (Enter the Villagers. They group themselves in 
 bands round the Altar of Pan, just outside the 
 portico of the house, and in view of Pheidippides 
 and Alcibiades.) 
 
 Song of the Maidens. 
 First Voice. 
 
 Sing, oh sing of the Summer, Maidens, 
 
 Summer is ours to be loved and sung, 
 Summer who, bidding the young be younger, 
 Well nigh biddeth the old be young. 
 
24 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Hail, oh hail to thee, sweet young Mother, 
 
 Bride whom Helios holding dear 
 Helpeth to fold her flowery kerchief 
 
 Over the heart of the nursling year. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Happily hears she, while she shapeth 
 
 Colour and form in the fruits to be, 
 Songs of the orchard afar, and farther, 
 
 Fishermen singing for hope of the Sea. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Heareth the Shepherd along the hillside, 
 
 Heareth the Milkmaid after the kine, 
 Housewife busy with pail and cauldron, 
 
 Good-man marrying elm to vine. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 No less heareth, and hearing loveth 
 
 Lowing of soberly wending herds, 
 Bay of the merry hound, bleat of the wild goat, 
 
 Mid-May riot of nesting birds. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 Ay, and the sunset crash in the willows, 
 Populous home of the swallow and swift, 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 2 5 
 
 Nightingales under the thorn brakes waiting 
 Smiles of the Moon as the grey clouds drift. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Hers are the gay moths mute on the roses, 
 
 Gnats at the fountain, flies in the lime, 
 Grasshoppers flashing a ruby pinion 
 Over the tufts of the scented thyme. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Hers are the bee-scouts draining the lily, 
 
 Quiet as thieves, of its honied floods, 
 Noisier cohorts storming the myrtles, 
 
 Plunged thigh deep in the cream-white studs. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Well she knoweth the love that sendeth 
 
 Heat to the heart of each flower that swells, 
 Love in the closing of happy clusters 
 
 Love in the bending of perfumed bells. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Love in the plumy wheat-crowns tossing, 
 
 Love in the poppy that 'neath them glows, 
 Love in tendril, and branch, and blossom, 
 
 Vine, and apple, and lily, and rose. 
 
26 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Pomegranate offering red lips, olive 
 
 Saucily shaking her silver sprays, 
 Aspen, alert as a fawn or leopard, 
 
 Ready for every wind that plays. 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Love of the mead for the streamlet winding, 
 
 Love of the beach for the climbing seas, 
 Tale of her love to coppice and orchard 
 
 Told in the whispering way of the breeze. 
 
 All. 
 Bird, bee, butterfly, tree, flock, floweret, 
 
 River, or wave, there is nought but lives ; 
 Liveth, and shareth the glee, the glory, 
 
 Light, heat, love that the Summer gives. 
 
 Ale. A graceful song, and a fair company ! 
 Nay, by my Sires, a very fair one ! Mark, 
 Oh my Pheidippides, yon leading Nymph, 
 Who sang the strophe, her with golden hair ! 
 I will go down and find some phrase to thank her, 
 If not for songs that were not made for me, 
 At least then for her sunny locks which are ! 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 2 7 
 
 Pheid. Golden hair, golden hair ; nay, nought of 
 
 that! 
 Stay where thou art ; I will not have thee move : 
 I want no village victims of thy follies. 
 
 Ale. [Laughing.] Shake not the curb too sharply, 
 
 charioteer ! 
 The steed is not for bolting ; what I said, 
 Was idly meant or meaningless. 
 
 Pheid. Nay, boy ; 
 
 I know not meaningless, or know too well 
 The drift of those who mean not. Thank the Gods, 
 She is betrothed ; and know, my town-bred friend, 
 I would not give a fig's price for thy life, 
 Wert thou to look on her with ill intent ; 
 I say not, work her ill : thy blood would drench 
 The roadside dust long ere thou cam'st to Argos : 
 Thy slaves, albeit full-armed, would be vain toys 
 Among these angry mountain lads of ours : 
 And I, I could not save thee if I would. 
 
 Ale. Peace, peace, old Sir ! I would not risk my 
 
 head 
 For half these pretty hoydens, much less one. 
 I will reserve myself for safer loves. 
 My gentle countrywomen, maid and dame, 
 
28 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 Are, thank the Gods, far fairer and more kind ! 
 But, hark ; here come the swains that mate thy 
 sirens. 
 
 Song of the Young Men. 
 First Voice. 
 
 Well have ye sung to the Summer, Maidens ; 
 
 Bright as a brook your melody ran ; 
 Now, albeit in ruder measure, 
 Sing we ours to the good God Pan. 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Pride of Arcady-loving Hermes, 
 
 Son of the High Gods, brother of Man, 
 We, the children of Earth thy chosen, 
 Sing for love of thee, good God Pan. 
 First Voice. 
 
 Nought he recks of the proud Olympus, 
 
 Icily crowned in the iEther clear, 
 Hebe's bowls, or the golden baskets, 
 Far from all that he holdeth dear. 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Nay, for his love is of Arcady's valleys, 
 Arcady's myriad founts and rills, 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 29 
 
 Winds that sport with her tossing woodlands, 
 Clouds that caper about her hills. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Marketh he not in the noons of Winter 
 
 Eagles soaring above the snow ? 
 Smileth he not on the moonlit lynxes 
 
 Stealing down to the folds below ? 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Watcheth the squirrels like little foxes 
 
 Over his head in the breeding time 
 Chase, and chatter, and leap, and nibble 
 
 Delicate rind of the beech and lime ? 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Dreamily hears the wood-bee's droning, 
 
 Dreamily nods to the note of the merle, 
 Down in the dells where alder thickets 
 
 Shake to the rivulet's endless purl. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Sleeps and dreams of the day when Syrinx, 
 
 Dreading the clasp of the godlike arms, 
 Showed, as she ran, to the happy Satyrs 
 
 All the fulness of flying charms. 
 
30 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Fast she fled by the banks of Ladon, 
 
 Till in the Marsh of the Silver Meads, 
 Faded her form and her cry together, 
 Hushed and hidden among the reeds. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Long he sought her, and seeking called her, 
 
 " Syrinx, Syrinx," about the brake, 
 " Syrinx, hearest thou ? " over the mountain, 
 
 " Syrinx, answer ! " along the lake. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 All too soon to the great Gods prayed she ; 
 
 All too soon did they hear her prayer ; 
 Now she waveth and bendeth ever 
 One poor crest of the thousands there. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 He, whenever his heart is tender, 
 
 Piping alone at the twilight's close, 
 Dreams that the spirit of Ladon's daughter 
 Lends its strain to the reed he blows. 
 
 First Voice. 
 
 Now, for the love of whatever loveth, 
 Out of his solitudes wanders He, 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 3 1 
 
 Fathering all things glad and fruitful, 
 
 Ordering all to be blithe and free. 
 Second Voice. 
 
 He too lighteth a young man's fancy, 
 
 He too maketh a maiden kind ; 
 Rouseth the soul of the wild wood, planteth 
 
 Love of the hart in the wayward hind. 
 First Voice. 
 
 His the joy in the marriage splendour 
 
 Burning on many a wild-bird's crest, 
 Plume of the loftily-seated heron 
 
 Watching his mate on her airy nest. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Hears he the coo of the harboured turtle, 
 
 Welcomes the swallows from over the sea, 
 Watches the shadows of hares in springtime 
 
 Splashing the moonlit dews of the lea. 
 
 All. 
 Cease we, cease we, the crowd of praises 
 
 Shatters the bounds of one poor song ! 
 Love of the stars, the snows, the mountains, 
 
 Love of the great streams bounding along ; 
 
3 2 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 Love of the winds asleep or calling, 
 Low herb, thicket, and towering tree ; 
 
 Love of the life in the Earth, our Mother, 
 Love of the life in her Sister Sea ; 
 
 Life, one life, and the joys of living ; 
 
 Brotherhood infinite, Earth, Air, Man ; 
 Love, one love, and the grace of loving ; 
 
 These are thy worship, our good God Pan ! 
 
 Ale. Well sung the swains ; may each one win 
 his maid ! 
 Name me yon ruddy giant on the left 
 Who stands and shouted o'er the rest ; his frame 
 Were worthy Milon ; he could rend an oak, 
 Or rive a lion's jaw ; I like him well. 
 
 Pheid. He is betrothed to her whose golden hair 
 Stirred up the satyr in thee. 
 
 Ale. Peace, old friend ! 
 
 Let me atone for my small levities, 
 And dower them both. 
 
 Pheid. Nay, rash one ; nay, once more. 
 
 I want no seed of envy, doubt, or scorn 
 Sown in some easy handfuls of thy gold ; 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. t>2> 
 
 No gossip of the women at the fountain, 
 
 No pointing of a cruel finger-tip, 
 
 With, " Why this dower from yon Athenian ? " 
 
 Nor would I that the wine-cup loosed some tongue 
 
 To jeer at " poor compliant Callicles," 
 
 And so to unsheath his knife, and stain our vale 
 
 With bloodshed and dishonour. Sweet young friend, 
 
 Thine impulses are swift,- and free, and gay, 
 
 And generous, as befits an Attic Noble; 
 
 But full of peril to thyself and others. 
 
 May Zeus preserve, and Pallas give thee wisdom, 
 
 As she to young Telemachus of old, 
 
 And Artemis to pure Hippolytus. 
 
 I own I fear for thee ; the more, perchance, 
 
 Because e'en now I love thee — But once more, 
 
 Listen ; the old men have a song to sing. 
 
 Song of the Old Men. 
 Feeble of foot are we, and faint of voice ; 
 
 Yet will we sing to thee, now these have sung ; 
 We worship thee, we love thee, we rejoice 
 
 No less than they, though they be fair and young. 
 
34 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 Oh Pan, our souls are young, and thou dost know 
 Ah, well dost know, that love is of the soul ; 
 
 Worn are thy reeds, and yet the tunes they blow, 
 Shall keep their freshness while the ages roll. 
 
 We have not lost our yearning for the Spring, 
 Nor sober love for Summer at her height, 
 
 With Autumn to her latest charm we cling, 
 And take our cheer with Winter in her night. 
 
 We sit and watch the splendours of the Dawn, 
 And joy to see the Sun outshine the Moon, 
 
 Though prisoners to the homestead and the lawn, 
 We gaze into th' illimitable Noon. 
 
 Hill, plain, glen, river, mountain, all are ours ; 
 
 We won them in our youth, and hold them yet ; 
 Our limbs may fail, but Memory's bright host scours 
 
 The past, and bars her portals to regret. 
 
 And we can muse in Evening's gathering shade, 
 And feel no sadness, though the Day be done ; 
 
 But trust that Death may waft us, when we fade, 
 To happy fields beyond the western Sun. 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 35 
 
 Our life has been full-furnished from its birth ; 
 
 Of neither want nor pain we care to tell ; 
 The beauties and the bounties of thine earth 
 
 Cease not for us, we cease, and it is well. 
 
 It may be we shall climb thine hill no more ; 
 
 And this may be the last song we shall sing ; 
 This our last gathering at thy Temple door ; 
 
 And these poor gifts our latest offering. 
 
 Then take them as the thanks of those who die, 
 And dying bless thee, Friend divine of man 
 
 And all things else beneath the boundless sky, 
 Earth-born, earth-habitant, Arcadian Pan. 
 
 Ale. Ah well, good folk, I cannot pity you 
 Who pity not yourselves. 
 
 Pheid. There art thou just. 
 
 Pity is not for those who sorrow not, 
 Having no cause for sorrow ; pity were 
 For him who pitied them. But see ; they wend, 
 Their sacrifice achieved, down the hill path, 
 
3 6 The Finding of Pheidippides. 
 
 In laughing groups, lasses and lads together ; 
 
 And after them their elders soberly 
 
 Ale. And just a little stiffly. But the Sun 
 Hath passed the South ; I see my people wait me. . 
 Farewell, my grandsire's friend ! I honour thee, 
 And would be like thee, if I could : but me, 
 And such as I — we do not mould ourselves — 
 Great Athens, and her destiny sublime, 
 Her noble thirst for empire, learning, wealth, 
 The arts of Pheidias and ^Eschylus, 
 Sophocles, Pindar, young Euripides, 
 Painting, the Lesbian and Ionic muse, 
 The stress and turmoil of the Agora, 
 With war as often as it cares to come, 
 And till it comes, magnificence, and love, 
 Olympic chariots, and the covert smile 
 And blush of maid and matron — one and all, 
 Beckon me back : and when my youth is spent, 
 And manhood's ripeness softens toward decay, 
 I will face Death, nay, give a hand to him, 
 Laugh, and try Hades ! But to plant me here, 
 Grow like a pumpkin, swell, turn brown, and rot 
 On the same dunghill that engendered me — 
 
The Finding of Pheidippides. 37 
 
 I was not made for that, nor that for me ! 
 Thou wouldst not tempt me to make trial of it ? 
 Pheid. Nay, boy ; Pan hath not seen thee, nor 
 thou Pan. 
 
WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 '"T"*HE turmoil and the stress of Day are done ; 
 Night holds all Nature in a happy swoon, 
 The Earth hath turned her shoulder to the Sun, 
 And given her bosom to the restful Moon. 
 
 From lane, and farm, and hedgerow, copse, and 
 brake, 
 
 Labour hath ceased to herald her reprieve, 
 And hushed are all the mingling sounds that make 
 
 The comfortable tumult of the eve. 
 
 The swifts are silent in the willow bed ; 
 
 The caw of homing rooks hath died away ; 
 And few would guess that round yon grey stone shed 
 
 A sparrow sleeps behind each ivy spray. 
 
40 Watches of the Night. 
 
 The owls have ceased to hunt about the wolds, 
 And scarce by loving ears a sound is heard, 
 
 Save coughing of the sheep in misty folds, 
 Or the chance twitter of some dreaming bird. 
 
 The last belated villager, who roused 
 
 Discordant protest from the suffering hill, 
 
 With snatches of his tavern songs, is housed, 
 And leaves the tortured air released and still. 
 
 The spreading silence seems a sound unfurled, 
 Whose subtle modulations fill all space 
 
 With music, and hold fast the sleeping world 
 locked in their vast melodious embrace. 
 
 This is the hour when to her worshippers 
 Night holds apart the curtain of her skies, 
 
 As unto one she surely knows for hers 
 A woman opens her heart's mysteries. 
 
 She proffers, and the craving Soul replies, 
 
 Feed me, thou bountiful and beauteous Night, 
 
 I am consumed with famine, drowned in cries 
 Of thoughts that hunger for the Infinite. 
 
Watches of the Night. 41 
 
 Thy shades reveal what blinding Day obscures, 
 And what without them we had never known ; 
 
 Hints of ten thousand galaxies are yours, 
 But hers eclipse, save of the Sun alone. 
 
 Without thee unto us had been as nought 
 The far-spaced comrades of our stately round, 
 
 Them hast thou garnered for us in ripe thought, 
 And sown our guesses through th' unreaped 
 profound. 
 
 Thy grace hath taught us how to grasp and prize 
 
 The secret of our origin and theirs, 
 And touch with feet assured and upward eyes 
 
 The first plane of th' illimitable stairs 
 
 Where Science mounteth slowly, as beseems 
 
 That Muse whose answer must be made on high; 
 
 Albeit at whiles she suffers her rich dreams 
 To gild the skirts of her austerity. 
 
 But, Night, what of the ^Ether ? What of Him 
 Before whose breath its earliest tremors grew ? 
 
 What of the Voice that through the spaces dim 
 Pealed forth in undulations vast as new : 
 
42 Watches of the Night. 
 
 And stirred the torpors of primeval cold, 
 Wherein the lifeless deeps inactive lay, 
 
 Till mass from mass, concentring, slowly rolled 
 Asunder, starting on their destined way. 
 
 And Light, Heat, Motion, mighty Modes became 
 Whereto the million chaunts of change are sung, 
 
 Where'er a Star expends its parent flame, 
 Alone, or in consorted orbit hung. 
 
 But yet, from thy vast arc how little won ! 
 
 Alas, alas for our restricted gaze, 
 That makes a pin's point of some giant Sun, 
 
 A twinkling spark of sether-cleaving rays : 
 
 And foils e'en thee ; for still thy darkness fails 
 To show unnumbered spheres that wait the aid 
 
 Of science with fresh optic power t' unveil 
 Thy regions blank of still unconquered shade. 
 
 But we, whose eyes have never swept the range 
 Of telescopic field thy pleasures share ; 
 
 Our station on this hill we would not change 
 For nightly seats in Equatorial chair. 
 
Watches of the Night. 43 
 
 Content are we to read the written scroll, 
 And take from lips revered the cosmic law, 
 
 To muse and dream, and bid a fasting soul 
 Feast upon splendours that eyes never saw. 
 
 Nor yet shall see, till Space no more be Space, 
 And dreams no more shall scour it unconfined ; 
 
 Or dull Mechanics seize her pride of place 
 
 From Spirit, and Mind's products outrange Mind. 
 
 Now pardon us who leave thee, gentle Night, 
 While yet in full possession of thy skies ! 
 
 Sleep draws down Fancy from thy limpid height, 
 And weighs upon the lids of wearied eyes. 
 
 Farewell ; for us till dawn thy halls are swayed 
 By flimsier shapes that through the Ivory Bars, 
 
 In elfish lightness dance from beam to shade 
 Beneath thy mild Moon and thy lordly Stars. 
 
ON THE THRESHOLD. 
 
 \T 7E stand between the pale stars and the Sun ; 
 Between the passing Night and dawning 
 Day; 
 What we could say is said, could do is done ; 
 The Night was ours, Morn waveth us away. 
 
 Earth, Sun, Stars, Years and Ages, what are they ? 
 
 Atoms of atoms bred and flung aside ; 
 Each but one pulse of that which beats for aye ; 
 
 One grain once rolled by an eternal tide. 
 
 And what this mortal sojourn of the Mind ? 
 
 From seasons numberless one bloom half blighted; 
 A meteor in a moment bright and blind ; 
 
 Mid perishable fires a spark half lighted. 
 
On the Threshold. 45 
 
 Yet, set we not our seals with those who sign 
 A creed of small contempt for life and man, 
 
 And see in well-filled years and souls that shine 
 An idle flicker and a worthless span. 
 
 Contempt ? Nay, full contentment to have been 
 One quartz-grain in the granite of the mountain ; 
 
 One drop to catch the common noonday sheen, 
 In bounding waterfall or plenteous fountain. 
 
 The crags have crumbled down to lift the plain, 
 We shared their work of slow and mighty motion ; 
 
 The river wound and swept to feed the main, 
 We helped to make the plenishment of ocean. 
 
 What clothed the peak, now fattens fruitful vales, 
 Orchard, and flowering mead, and corn-sheets 
 waving ; 
 What swelled the seas, spreads vaporous wings 
 and scales 
 Fresh heights of air, to fall, far summits laving. 
 
46 On the Threshold. 
 
 There is no pause, no death, but change, still change ; 
 
 Each end that looms is but a new beginning ; 
 Stones set from verge to verge, from range to range ; 
 
 Knots on the thread th' eternal wheels are spinning. 
 
 Then, fare thee well, thou Life that we have known ; 
 
 Thy bands must break, e'en now we feel them 
 slacken ; 
 We will not shame our souls by making moan, 
 
 Nor prate of lights that fail, or clouds that blacken. 
 
 We mark thine hours, and taking thus our leave, 
 Of all thine images but one we borrow ; 
 
 Our going is as sleep in summer eve, 
 
 Within whose gates we pass to meet thy Morrow. 
 
PAUSANIAS AND CLEONICE, 
 
 A FRAGMENT OF HISTORY 
 
 DRAMATICALLY 
 
 TREATED. 
 
I dedicate this Poem to my friend 
 
 Sidney Colvin Esq. 
 
 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Keeper 
 of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Pausanias, King Regent of Sparta, was the General in 
 command of the Greek army at the battle of Platsea. His 
 success on that occasion upset the moral balance of a brilliant 
 but unstable nature. He began forthwith to develop and 
 indulge qualities and propensities which would have been 
 ridiculous if they had not been at once disgraceful in a Greek 
 leader, antipathetic to Greek simplicity, and dangerous to 
 the Commonwealth. He assumed the imperious airs of a 
 despot, imitated the luxury, the splendour, and even the 
 dress of an Asiatic potentate, and indulged himself in all 
 those forms of wanton licentiousness which are too often 
 associated with uncontrolled power. That his colleagues 
 should have borne so long with him is inexplicable. The 
 climax of his audacity in one direction seems to have been 
 reached during the occupation of Byzantium, in a demand, 
 under threats which her relatives had not the constancy to 
 resist, that Cleonice, the daughter of a conspicuous family of 
 that city, should be handed over to him. His wretched 
 victim only obtained the condition that her surrender should 
 be made at midnight, and that his tent should be kept in 
 darkness upon her arrival. He lived in a constant dread of 
 assassination, and it so happened that stepping forward as 
 she entered, she overturned an unlighted lamp. The crash 
 of its fall aroused Pausanias, who had fallen asleep, and he, 
 imagining himself to be attacked by enemies, seized his 
 sword, and stabbed her. She died, upbraiding him ; and it 
 
Argument. 51 
 
 was said that he was ever afterwards haunted by halluci- 
 nations arising from the fever of unavailing remorse. He 
 tried in vain every known form of expiation, and finally 
 applied to the Necromancers of Heraclea in Arcadia, who 
 evoked the Spirit of Cleonice, with a view to extract from 
 her at once some terms of her pardon, and some indication 
 of his own destiny. He was said partly to have succeeded 
 in the latter object, though the Spirit avowed herself inex- 
 orable in her hate and her desire for vengeance. To his 
 other vices Pausanias added the peculiarly Greek failing of 
 political dishonesty. There can be no doubt that, like 
 Themistocles, he had the closest dealings with the Persian 
 Court, and was willing with its assistance to have mounted 
 to the throne of a tributary Greece. His ruin was completed 
 by the disclosures, first, of some among the more prominent 
 of the Spartan Helots, upon whose revolt he had counted, 
 and secondly, of an Argilian slave of his own, who, sus- 
 pecting treachery to himself, broke the seals of some des- 
 patches which he had been charged to carry to Artabazus, 
 and therein discovered not only their treasonable character, 
 but urgent injunctions for his own immediate death. These 
 the outraged envoy handed over to the Spartan Ephori. 
 But the latter, before acting on the double information thus 
 brought before them, contrived to overhear in an interview, 
 for that purpose arranged between Pausanias and the Argilian, 
 the fullest confirmation of the king's guilt from his own lips. 
 On the eve of arrest, the culprit, probably favoured by some 
 friend among the magistracy, took refuge in a building be- 
 longing to the shrine of Athene of the Brazen House. The 
 authorities, not daring formally to violate such a sanctuary, 
 bricked up all the entrances to his place of refuge, and there 
 left him to starve to death. To prevent the pollution of the 
 holy place, he was carried out into the open air just as he 
 was on the point of expiring, and so he died. 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 Pausanias, King Regent of Sparta. 
 
 Cleonice, a Byzantine Maiden. 
 
 The Father ' 
 
 The Mother 
 
 The Brother 
 
 The Sisters . 
 
 A Priestess at Heraclea. 
 
 Zenophile, a female slave of Pausanias. 
 
 Two Ephori of Sparta. 
 
 Agathias, a slave and friend of Pausanias. 
 
 of Cleonice. 
 
 SUPERNATURAL PERSONAGES. 
 
 The God Hermes. 
 
 A Chorus of Dreams. 
 
 The Phantom of Cleonice. 
 
PAUSANIAS AND CLEONICE. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 In a Byzantine Noble's House. 
 
 (Cleonice and her Family.) 
 
 Mother. 
 A ND will the tyrant not repent himself 
 
 Of his unspeakable demand ? 
 Father. Alas, 
 
 I offered him house, lands, to half our substance ; 
 And more, if that would free us ; but in vain ; 
 He had one only answer, " Sir, your daughter 
 Send her to me, or else ye go forthwith 
 Neath trusty escort to the Persian king, 
 With such a tale, as told, for thee shall mean 
 Tortures and death, and for thy women all 
 A fate far worse than that which makes thee plead 
 For Cleonice alone." 
 
54 Patisanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Mother. Alas, how long 
 
 The respite he allows us ? 
 
 Father. Till to-night. 
 
 Mother. Oh would the Gods permitted me, that I, 
 Like to Alcestis for Admetus' life, 
 Might give my own, and free you all ! My child, 
 Ah me, my child, why wast thou beautiful, 
 To tempt him thus ? 
 
 Cleonice. Reproach me not, my mother, 
 
 Nor prate of tempting him. 
 
 Father. Ye know, ye Heavens, 
 
 Thou Earth, and you, ye Gods of Heaven and Hell, 
 How I would die for her, but that my death 
 Would leave wife, house, and her, but barer yet 
 Unto this spoiling recreant. 
 
 Cleon. Too late 
 
 Were now the sacrifice ; yet plain it is 
 That hadst thou died, his threat had died with thee 
 Of handing thee denounced unto the Mede. 
 But words are vain. 
 
 Brother. Ay, vain ; and we are six, 
 
 And thou but one. Who knoweth if the Spartan 
 May wed thee yet, and thou, as she of old, 
 That same restored Alcestis whom ye name, 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 55 
 
 Lived out her life within her husband's home, 
 May'st reign a happy Queen in Lacedsmon. 
 
 Ckon. Boy, cease with thine Alcestis and thy 
 Queen ! 
 Ye all know well there are no crowns for me ! 
 Alcestis did but die ; and death were nothing 
 To that whereto I go ; this too ye know ; 
 And yet ye send me thither, in the scare 
 Of threats, which he who threatens might still fear 
 To bring to the birth of action. Let me pass. 
 Would my death save you, I had slain myself. 
 Unhand me, mother ! Let me pass, I say ! 
 No kisses, no farewells ; back, all of you ! 
 This night is none of farewell, but ill fare. 
 Were it for death or bridal, I had left you 
 Weeping and being wept for ; as things are 
 I loathe these shows of sorrow. What are tears ? 
 Ye shed them, but ye would not have them stay me. 
 My sister, lift thine eyes, and list to me ! 
 I charge thee, cling to thy virginity ; 
 Thou, too, may'st have to buy this house its freedom. 
 'Tis done ; I have no father, mother, kin. 
 Love, grief, are dead within me ; I but leave 
 Some folk behind me who would save themselves 
 
56 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Out of my ruin. Farewells, weeping, kisses ! 
 
 Ye might kiss Cleonice, but not me ; 
 
 Or weep for Cleonice, not for me. 
 
 Take leave of Cleonice, not of me. 
 
 I am not Cleonice, she is dead. 
 
 And in her place a Fury breatheth here 
 
 Whose heart-beats are of hate alone. Beware ! 
 
 These fingers are as Harpies' claws, and ache 
 
 To tear and strangle you before I go. 
 
 Stand back ; and let me pass into the night. 
 
 Into the night ; ye Gods, what means the night ! 
 
 [Exit. 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 57 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 In the Outer Tent of Pausanias. 
 
 {Pausanias and a Woman Slave.) 
 
 Pausanias. 
 T S all well ordered ? Are the Tyrian silks 
 
 Disposed on couch and settle ? The gold cups, 
 And basons, jewel caskets, flower vases, 
 Set to a maiden's fancy ? Looks the tent 
 Meet for a lady's welcome, fit to take 
 Her eyes by storm when once they waken on it ? 
 
 Slave. Oh King, were she a Princess born and 
 nursed 
 In splendour, yet she would be dazed with thine. 
 
 Pans. She is a Princess ; that remember thou ; 
 And thou her slave, that too remember thou. 
 
 Slave. Am I not thine, and should I not be hers ? 
 {Aside.] Have I not known the slavery of gold cups, 
 Sidonian broideries, bracelets, crowns and kisses, 
 
58 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 As now of earthen vessels, with mean tasks, 
 Coarse clothes, and sterner handling ! So shall she ; 
 Or else the stony heart within yon breast 
 Hath changed its texture strangely. 
 
 [Aloud.] All is done ; 
 May I retire ? 
 
 Paus. Ay, good Zenophile ; 
 
 Sleep sound. Art thou well lodged ? 
 
 Slave. Ay ; well enough. 
 
 Paus. Farewell, then. 
 
 Slave. Fare thee well, oh King. [Exit. 
 
 Paus. [Alone.] 'Tis strange : 
 
 This is the first time that my will fulfilled 
 Brings me no pleasure : am I sated, cold ? 
 Hath my sense slackened ? Grows my soul perchance 
 Self-cramping, craven-tender ? Would remorse, 
 Like a night spoiler, steal on waning power 
 To make resolve its plunder ? The change were 
 Too vast, too sudden ; but an hour ago 
 I was aflame with waiting, now I sit 
 Pulseless, nay worse than pulseless ; like a pain 
 That starts half-felt, something within me stirs 
 Akin to fear or scruple ; and the words 
 " Send the girl home again " beset my brain 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 59 
 
 Like tremors of the wind on a lake's surface. 
 
 'T may be I am but weary ; for to-day 
 
 Too many hours have I gone through in strife 
 
 With wily Gongylus, behind whom works 
 
 That new-come Satrap of Daskylium. 
 
 Why should I pause ? What fear ? What harm can 
 
 come? 
 Her parents send her, she herself hath made 
 Her own conditions of arrival. What 
 Can signify one flower the more in that 
 Which grows to a great nosegay ? And this last 
 Plucked with so much of nicety withal 
 In my full midsummer of power. Some gift 
 Of lands or rank shall pacify her kin ; 
 And for herself — let me not mock myself ! 
 I need an hour's repose, and 'tis as far 
 From now till midnight : I will light no lamp ; 
 She bargained for the dark ; the merest touch 
 Will wake me ; threatened men like me sleep light ; 
 And in her sweet intrusion I await 
 A menace worth a kingdom ! Come then, Sleep ; 
 Reign thou till Cleonice's reign begins. 
 
 \He lies down. 
 
6o Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 In the open air outside the Walls of 
 Byzantium. 
 
 (Time, midnight. A group of Spartan Soldiers. 
 The tent of Pausanias in the background.) 
 
 Enter Cleonice. 
 
 Cleonice. 
 O O go I forth out of my father's house, 
 *-* With moon and stars to witness how I go, 
 And where ; the victim of a fate so dire, 
 A pact so base, that surely never yet 
 Hath either found a fellow that could stamp 
 A like brand on the records of the world. 
 Women have suffered ravishment ere this, 
 And in the fearful settlements of war 
 Have lost love, innocence, and princely homes, 
 And learned to lower heads, that once were proud, 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 6 1 
 
 rieet the loathsome uses of the slave, 
 i was Cassandra, such Andromache, 
 1 Helen's self ; so died Polyxena, 
 rgin offering to Pelides' shade ; 
 i so a thousand others have faced ruin, 
 none, none, none, in the long flight of time, 
 it forth as I from her paternal hearth, 
 lly abandoned by her coward kin, 
 ) might have died to save her, but love better 
 buy a shameful ease out of her shame, 
 3th amaze me, knowing this and them, 
 filled with loathing of them, as I am, 
 t yet my will is firm to go, my limbs 
 staunch to carry me. Unveiled I bear 
 r light, ye Moon and Stars ; look well, and answer, 
 ye not wonder at me, Moon and Stars ? 
 ye shine down, as though I lay asleep 
 ithing unruffled airs of peace and home ; 
 . so will shine, through all those murderous hours 
 list endure ; and if I live, and face 
 ther midnight, ye will shine again 
 ilenched, unpitying. Who will pity me ? 
 my cold recreant father who could sell me ; 
 my weak mother who could let me go ; 
 
62 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Nor my base brother with his " We are six, 
 
 And she but one." Self love knows less of pity 
 
 Than Hate itself; Hate that makes mock of all, 
 
 As I do now. Ah me, I wellnigh laugh 
 
 As I stand here, to think how presently, 
 
 Two, three days hence perchance, and not for long, 
 
 Ye women of light-tongued Byzantium, 
 
 As ye stand loitering with your water-urns, 
 
 Or spread your new-washed purple on the mead, 
 
 Matrons and maids, ye will outstay the Noon 
 
 In broidering with your words this tale of mine. 
 
 And some will even weep, but more will laugh, 
 
 And on their fingers tell the gifts wherewith 
 
 Pausanias hath consoled the ruined maid. 
 
 Fools all, both those who weep, and those who sneer, 
 
 And nought alike to me. 
 
 [To a Soldier who approaches, and veiling 
 herself. 
 And who art thou ? 
 
 Soldier. Lady, one sent by King Pausanias 
 To bring fair Cleonice on her way. 
 
 Cleon. Lead on then, I shall follow thee. 
 
 Soldier. Fair dame, 
 
 My orders were to screen thee in our band, 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 63 
 
 Lest anyone should spy thee, or aught harm thee. 
 
 Cleon. Or, lest I fled ; had I intended flight, 
 I had not now been here ; for lesser perils, 
 They are now nought to me. Therefore, lead on. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
64 Pansauias and Cleonice. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 Inside the Outer Tent of Pausanias. 
 
 (Pausanias sleeping uneasily.') 
 
 Chorus of Dreams. 
 First Voice. 
 
 T~**AR o'er the western foam, 
 
 """ Our pinions charged with gifts of peace or fear, 
 
 Out of the shadow of our ocean home 
 
 We come to hold our nightly vigils here 
 
 Above the infant's cot 
 Light-winged we sport in fancies half revealed, 
 And love to mark the smiles remembered not 
 Play o'er its dimpled cheek and lips unsealed. 
 
 And o'er the maiden's bed 
 We hover while she dwells in hours to be, 
 Bid her weave garlands for her own fair head, 
 And waft her forth to sail love's golden sea. 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 65 
 
 The outworn monarch's brow 
 Still throbbing with a crown's perplexities, 
 
 As cool foam bathes a good ship's labouring prow, 
 We soothe with rippling echoes of lost ease. 
 
 Where 'neath the stars he lies 
 We charm the sleeping warrior till he hears 
 His lone wife singing as her shuttle flies, 
 Or laughing with his child behind her tears. 
 Second Voice. 
 
 But not alone to those 
 Whom the Great Gods in love compassionate 
 Would dower with fleeting joys and brief repose 
 Have we flown hither through the Ivory Gate. 
 
 Some with intent malign, 
 Through the gaunt Portals of austerer Horn, 
 Dispensers of the punishment divine, 
 
 Vex the mute air from midnight unto morn. 
 
 Mark well this sleeper here 
 His quivering eyelids, brows and temples wet 
 With anguish, lips held wide apart by fear 
 And fingers clutching at the coverlet. 
 
66 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Traitor and tyrant grown, 
 The wreck of his own lightness, lust, and greed, 
 He plots to sit a slave upon a throne 
 
 The hireling and the henchman of the Mede. 
 Third Voice. 
 
 He thought in our despite 
 To force sweet slumber unto uses ill, 
 
 And called upon our gentle mother Night 
 To whet the dull edge of his evil will. 
 
 But ere he laid him down 
 We heard our Mother's whisper and we flew, 
 And from her starry forehead brushed the frown 
 With mocking ease when we her bidding knew. 
 
 No whit more easily 
 Her own light breezes fan the mists away 
 
 That veil her moon, when first she takes the sky 
 From pale-eyed Hours still fretting for the Day. 
 
 Behold him, how he lies 
 Writhing for dread of vengeance long delayed, 
 And gasps and raves of seizure and surprise, 
 And plucks with fevered hand his ready blade. 
 [Cleonice farts the tent curtains. 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 67 
 
 But, Sisters mine, I fear 
 Lest with some horror new this hour be fraught, 
 Mark well her fateful eyes who cometh here ; 
 Oh Night, Night, Night, what evil hast thou 
 wrought ? 
 
 [As Cleonice steps forward, she overturns in 
 the dark an unlighted lamp, which falls 
 with a crash. 
 Paus. [ Waking and seizing his sword.] What ! 
 Treason ? Who betrays me ? Nay, not yet ! 
 Not yet, I say, nor so, Pausanias falls ! 
 Die, traitor, robber, or whate'er thou art ! 
 
 [He stabs Cleonice, who shrieks, and falls. 
 Ah Gods and Furies all ! Without there ! Torches ! 
 'Twas she, and I have slain her ! Cleonice ! 
 Where liest thou, where liest thou ? Light, light ! 
 Speak, maiden, but one word to show thou livest. 
 By every God, I swear I saw thee not, 
 But dreamed of treason and surprise, and linked 
 That noise thou mad'st on entering to my dream. 
 Without there ! Quick, bring torches for your lives ! 
 [Enter attendants bearing torches. 
 Ah, there thou liest, and smitten through that 
 breast 
 
68 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 I longed to make my pillow. 
 
 \He moves forward as if to raise her. 
 
 Cleon. Touch me not ! 
 
 I would descend untainted to the Shades. 
 Saved, saved ; but not, thou murderer, by thee ! 
 'Twas not thy will that spared me, but the Fates, 
 More kindly than I deemed. 
 
 [He once more makes as if he would raise her. 
 Away, I say ! 
 Let me die unpolluted by thy fingers. 
 Oh stained by double dyes of lust and murder, 
 Live on, accursed : oh, let him live, ye Gods ! 
 Long, long ; so that my ghost may follow him, 
 Leagued with the Furies over land and sea ; 
 To phrenzy lash him now, now strike him down 
 Until he quake with palsy like a rush, 
 For this his pair of crimes wrought and unwrought. 
 I would not have him die, lest death absolved him. 
 
 Paus. Ah maiden, hear me ! 
 
 Cleon. \Faintly.~\ Silence ; let me die. 
 
 [She dies. 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 69 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 At the Oracle of the Necromancers of 
 Heraclea in Arcadia. 
 
 Pausanias. [Alone.] 
 "|\ /T Y fate is closing in on me ; I need 
 
 No words of a convulsed and foaming hag, 
 Stung by her God, or raving self-inflamed, 
 To tell me this : converging perils roll 
 And menace me, like flocks of hungry clouds 
 That climb and gather up a mountain flank, 
 To glut themselves with thunder, and then fall. 
 Well ; let all break on me ; I am resigned, 
 And weary somewhat, and can own that, judged 
 By laws which strong men masterfully break, 
 And of high purpose, and the weak transgress 
 Of none, but of mere weakness, I have sown 
 Ruin, and reap it, and with ruin, death. 
 
yo Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Would I knew more ? What more is there to know? 
 They can but tell me how I am to die, 
 And that is little worth. What matters it ? 
 A sword-thrust, or a poison-bowl, or even 
 The pressure of a rope about my throat — 
 Though men may loathe the last — or to be hurled, 
 Like Sciron, from some summit, and to swoon 
 Midway, ere I could reach the waiting waves. 
 These are but Death's apparel ; for himself 
 I neither seek nor fear him, let him come. 
 
 [After a pause. 
 Of all such deeds as for the doer cleave 
 Life into epochs, I have wrought but one 
 Whereof I do repent me ; but that one, 
 Unwitting as abhorred, hath dazed my soul, 
 Blasted and blighted it, as eyes struck blind 
 By lightning ; it hath wrecked my mastery 
 Of plot and project ; shattered my resolve ; 
 Bereft me of the longing, hope, and will, 
 And dominant passion for high-seated power, 
 That were my being ; it hath beat me down, 
 And made a Helot of me, a mere slave 
 To live and bear ; my days have sunk to be 
 Stages in one long march of agony ; 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 7 1 
 
 My nights vain halts, of vigil or of sleep, 
 Hemmed round by terror-laden silences, 
 That press about my soul like dungeon walls, 
 And madden more than shriek or curse, or howl 
 Of banded Furies raging for revenge. [He pauses. 
 Revenge — and is it hers ? Whose if not hers ? 
 And why e'en hers ? I plead with mine own soul ; 
 Was it a deed done beyond pale of pardon ? 
 I slew her ; but I loved her ; and I know, 
 Though she came late into my life, I loved 
 None else before her. Were it not enough 
 To bear the famine of lost love, to gasp 
 With each quick pulse of recollected horror, 
 As day by day before me sweep undimmed 
 Those moments which havelinked me to the damned, 
 But that her threatening eyes should ever gleam 
 Out of the gloom that wraps my solitude, 
 Implacable and fiery, fed with flames 
 Of hate, such hate as Hades cannot quell ; 
 A hate that will not hearken to remorse 
 Nor melt before despair ; whose appetite 
 My ruin will leave ravenous, perchance 
 Not e'en my death appease. For who can tell 
 How far a pallid Ghost, untamed by time, 
 
72 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 With gaping breast, and murder's ghastly shows, 
 May follow me upbraiding through the Shades, 
 Insatiate that my misery should pay 
 Eternal tribute to her tyrannous claim 
 For that one unpremeditated wrong. 
 
 [Enter a Priestess. 
 Priestess. Sir, King, it is the hour when suppliants 
 fain 
 To commune with the spirits of the dead, 
 And share that knowledge which their under-world 
 Hath of the things to come in this, must aid 
 With offerings due the mightier potency 
 Of spells entrusted unto us, who keep 
 These holy groves, and this dark nameless shrine 
 Where never yet the light of sun or moon 
 Or any star hath entered. Take yon lamp ; 
 'Twill guide thy feet up to the altar steps ; 
 There shalt thou find all that befitteth thee 
 To offer to the Powers that reign below : 
 A bowl of pure milk from a heifer fed 
 In these our virgin meadows, which till now 
 Scythe hath not swept, nor any foot hath pressed 
 Save of our saintly maidens ; honey, wrought 
 By bees which haunt our lawns alone, and drain 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 73 
 
 Their sweets of lime and lily, rose and thyme, 
 And plants diverse that grace our solitudes : 
 A jar of lustral water from a spring 
 Untainted waits thee ; and a cup that brims 
 With fresh-drawn juice of purple bunches, plucked 
 From their wild mother-vine, that never knew 
 The shears or tendance of a husbandman : 
 And there too stands a flask of fragrant oil 
 Crushed from the dark fruit of that tree benign 
 Whose crown of silver foliage never fails, 
 The olive ; and with these are clustered blooms 
 Of many-hued and many-scented flowers, 
 The offspring of this bounteous plot of earth, 
 Which the Great Mother loves to clothe and deck 
 Through all the seasons. These accustomed gifts 
 Shalt thou in order on the shrine bestow ; 
 Then backward pace, and wait in silence here. 
 Ours be it then to urge our wonted prayer. 
 
 [Pausanias, as bidden, advances to the altar, 
 places the gifts on it, and then retires. 
 
 Invocation. 
 
 Aidoneus, dweller in the gloom 
 
 Whereto the deep night's deepest shade 
 
74 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Is as the glow of summer eve, 
 Thou art the warden of each tomb 
 Wherein a mortal's bones are laid 
 And only by thy sovereign leave 
 A soul may cross that dusky bourne 
 Which laves the shores of thy domain, 
 And marks the borders of thy power ; 
 We pray for one a brief return, 
 
 One whom yon suppliant would detain 
 In conference for a single hour ; 
 Aidoneus, oh Aidoneus, hear, 
 And bid the summoned Shade appear ! 
 
 She comes not yet ; great Mother Earth, 
 Is it thy jealous bosom's hold 
 That keeps her in a locked embrace ? 
 Oh, grudge her not this second birth, 
 But let thy gracious arms unfold, 
 And spare her for a little space. 
 Perchance, as thine own icy veins 
 Grow softer to the sighs of spring, 
 And fiery-tempered summer's heat, 
 Is tender after tearful rains, 
 
 So she from her long sojourning 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 75 
 
 Beneath thy breast so calm and sweet, 
 Hath learned the graces that abate 
 The fires of Rage and frosts of Hate. 
 
 Not yet she comes ; oh, Maia's son, 
 Bright-sandalled Herald of the Gods, 
 Helper of all in woe or fear, 
 Oh help us now, thou dauntless one ; 
 And soon as dark Aidoneus nods 
 His symbol of assent severe, 
 Imperious take her struggling hand, 
 And as thou leddest her before 
 Reluctant underneath the Night, 
 Subdue her will to thy command, 
 
 And force her eyes unsealed once more 
 To open on the pale Moon's light : 
 Aidoneus, Hermes, Earth, Dread Three, 
 Let not our call unanswered be ! 
 
 [As the song ceases, the Phantom of Cleo- 
 nice appears standing in front of the 
 Altar. 
 Priestess. Oh, King, behold her. She is free to stay 
 But one short hour ; make thou thy quest of her. 
 Pans. Cleonice, oh Cleonice ! . It is she ! 
 
J 6 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Phantom. Call me not Cleonice ; she is dead ; 
 Nay, worse than dead, if it be worse to be 
 As though she never were ; she passed from Earth 
 Ere thou didst stab me, and hath left no Shade ; 
 Went, as a cloud goes without wind, dissolved 
 Into the elements. I stand instead, 
 The Ghost of thine own child ; a Monster bred 
 Of a most loathsome Pair ; thy cruel lust 
 Was my begetter, and my parents ' shame 
 The harlot that did bear me. Ay, ye made me 
 Among you a new Portent, fierce and strange, 
 A Daemon, a fourth Fury, what thou wilt : 
 A being to whom 'tis life to haunt thy steps, 
 Rend thee with horror, hound thee to that goal 
 Where ruin and death await thee. Such am I ; 
 I feed on wrath and vengeance ; when thou diest 
 I shall die too, pine, fade for want of thee. 
 Oh, I shall cling to thee ; thou wouldst possess me ; 
 Well, I am thine, not to be driven off 
 When thou hast wearied of me. For thy quest, 
 I know it ; take thine answer : I have nought 
 That thou shouldst ask to tell thee of, save this; 
 That thou shalt die, lone, save for me, despised, 
 Deserted, starved, betraying and betrayed ; 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 7 7 
 
 Loathed, even by thy Mother, as I died 
 Loathing my own. Such is the fate that waits thee; 
 Hear it, and with it hear my deathless curse, 
 The curse as of a Fury, breathed in flames. 
 May I depart ? [To the Priestess. 
 
 Paus. Nay, Spirit, thou shalt hear me, 
 
 Albeit I have summoned thee in vain ! 
 I loved thee when I slew thee. 'Twas a dream 
 Sent by some hostile God, e'en Zeus perchance, 
 In recompense of other deeds of mine, 
 And reckless of thy death, or it may be, 
 To save thee — as thy cry was — by thy death, 
 That raised my witless and distempered hand 
 In that rash blow. Maiden, I loved thee well ; 
 And should have loved thee better day by day ; 
 I should have grown to thee, and thou to me ; 
 Thou shouldst have been my Queen, when I was 
 
 King 
 By title greater than the puny name 
 Mine own State gave me. Ah, believe me, Maid, 
 I would have carried thee in pride to Sparta, 
 And thence, from a joint throne of love and power, 
 When I had baffled Greece and tricked the Mede, 
 Together had we reigned o'er half the world. 
 
78 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Phantom. Thou liest, traitor to thy land and me ! 
 These were fit pleas for some half-witted girl 
 To grow too tender over ; but to me 
 'Tis a fool's answer ! Cease ; the dead know all. 
 Give o'er, and let me go. 
 
 Pans. And is this all ? 
 
 Hast thou no mercy ? Art thou so transformed 
 That ruin and remorse and misery 
 Are nought to thee ? 
 
 Phantom. Ay, nought, nought, nought ! 
 
 I laugh at all, at them and thee and me. 
 
 Paus. Then must it be that thou wast ever thus, 
 A fury from thy birth ; with heart of bronze, 
 That wrong hath heated but not changed. No more ! 
 Henceforth I fling off pity and remorse ; 
 And take my ruin but as one who failed 
 To compass empire. Since, for thee and me, 
 A new light breaks upon me ; I see clear. 
 It was no delicate Byzantine maid 
 I plotted for, but one without a soul, 
 Whose ruin was no crime. 
 
 Phantom. No, traitor, no ! 
 
 Not thus the easy guile of thy false thought 
 Shall work thee self acquittal. 'Tis not so : 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 79 
 
 They used to call me gentle ; many loved me, 
 Birds, beasts, and men ; doves floated down to feed 
 Out of these hands and cluster on these shoulders ; 
 And calves came trotting round me in the meads. 
 The wretched forced a smile to greet me with, 
 And poor, to whom life brought no blessing, found 
 Blessings for me, where'er I walked among them. 
 Such was I, till thou, Monster, in thy lust 
 Cast baleful eyes on me, and made that pact, 
 Which maddens still, with my most shameful kin ; 
 Kin now no more, nor e'er again to be, 
 E'en though my only harbour from them were 
 A hidden refuge in that nethermost Hell, 
 Where no light is, and dwell the damned and dumb, 
 Who see not, hear not, but lie lone for ever, 
 Motionless in eternal solitude. 
 
 Priestess. Spirit, thine hour hath come ; to keep 
 thee here 
 Beyond th' alloted moments, were t' imperil 
 Ourselves with the dread Powers who sent thee here. 
 Thou art dismissed. [The Phantom vanishes. 
 
 For thee, unhappy King, 
 Thy fate and the rich gifts thou hast bestowed, 
 Alike bespeak our hospitality. 
 
80 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Outside the grove a chamber is prepared 
 
 With bread and meats and wine : thy couch is 
 
 spread, 
 And all things ordered that beseem thy state. 
 'Twere fit that we retired : farewell. 
 
 Pans. Farewell. [Exeunt 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 8 1 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 
 a building within the sacred precinct of 
 the Shrine of Poseidon at T^enarus. 
 
 {Two Spartan Ephors and the Slave Agatkias.) 
 
 First Ephor. 
 T S all well planned ? Will he be here to-night ? 
 Slave. I looked for him at sundown. 
 Second Ephor. Art thou armed ? 
 
 He hath grown desperate ; he was ever prone 
 To strike on a suspicion ; thou thyself 
 Wast with him when, set raving by a dream, 
 He stabbed that maiden of Byzantium. 
 Beware then, lest a sudden dagger-thrust 
 Surprise thee and foil us. 
 
 Slave. [Showing a dagger and a hidden breast- 
 plate.] Fear not, my Lords : 
 E'en if the terror of these holy places 
 
 G 
 
82 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Withhold him not, I warrant me, the blood 
 That stained their sanctuary were his, not mine. 
 But go, conceal yourselves ; e'en now methought 
 I heard a footstep. On your lives be still. 
 
 [Exeunt Ephors. 
 
 Pans. [Entering^ Agathias, art thou here ? 
 
 Slave. [Coming from behind a pillar.] Behold 
 me, King ! 
 
 Pans. My time is short ; tell me without delay, 
 Why thou hast taken sanctuary ? I deemed thee 
 Far on thy voyage to Asia. 
 
 Slave. Royal friend — 
 
 For we two have been friends, as we both know — 
 I will be brief with thee : thou best canst tell 
 How many messengers have passed between 
 The Satrap Artabazus and thyself : 
 I have known ten. Well, when thou gavest me 
 Those letters, with large promise of reward, 
 Upon their safe deliverance in Asia, 
 Some favouring God whispered into mine ear, 
 "Agathias, ere thou step on shipboard, pause, 
 And ask thyself, where are those ten thou knewest, 
 — With more, perchance, who in their turn have 
 borne 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 83 
 
 Letters from thy Pausanias to the Mede — 
 Didst ever see one who came back again ? 
 Consider, good Agathias." I did so ; 
 And deemed it better to commit myself 
 To his good keeping who commands the sea 
 Than to the sea itself. 
 
 Pans. But what thy fear ? 
 
 Slave. First, that some common accident befell 
 Each bearer of a letter, some mischance 
 Bred of a trifle somewhere in its writing, 
 That bought the silence of their several tongues 
 With a slit throat. And secondly, I thought 
 My being here would bring thee hither too, 
 So that thou might'st explain how none of those ' 
 Ever came home. 
 
 Paus. Agathias, my old friend, 
 
 Why didst thou doubt me ? Have I not been true, 
 Loving, and lavish with thee ? Why not speak ? 
 Why peril all in this delay ? Mere chance, 
 A midday stroll into the market place, 
 A passing Ephor's gossip, let me know 
 That my Agathias was a suppliant 
 Before the shrine at Tsenarus. On the word 
 I hasted hither. Let me tell thee all. 
 
84 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Great schemes of State are coming to the birth 
 Between me and the Mede; their argument 
 Hath needed interchange and close debate 
 Of view, intent, mode, scruple, and demand, 
 Over long months and years : after such service 
 It had been fatal that a messenger 
 Should live to blab — in treason or his cups — 
 " I went 'twixt Susa and Byzantium 
 With letters of Pausanias and the Mede : " 
 Therefore each died. But now the scheme is ripe, 
 And I may use an honoured trusty friend 
 To share its fulness with me, help me reap 
 My harvest sown so long, so long of growth, 
 And sit — well — sit hard by the throne of Greece. 
 Come forth then, I beseech thee ; the ship waits ; 
 I will conduct thee to the shore. 
 
 Slave. Not yet ; 
 
 There is some little left : I do believe 
 The motive and the manner of those deaths, 
 Mainly that I made free to learn myself 
 Thy mandate for my own. I broke thy seals. 
 Not meaning to be false ; nay sneer not, friend — 
 Unless I found thee false. I had prepared 
 A counterfeit ; had they proved innocent, 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 85 
 
 I had re-sealed the missives, and gone on. 
 What need to tell thee ! Good Pausanias, 
 No voyages for me on thy behalf; 
 A shorter, safer land route carries me 
 Unto the Spartan Ephors. 
 
 Paus. Think'st thou, fool, 
 
 A slave shall baulk a Spartan King ! 
 
 [He strikes at him with a dagger, which 
 breaks against the hidden cuirass. 
 Slave. [Laughing.] Slave ! King ! 
 
 Mere words ! The Slave mocks, and the King — 
 
 well — trembles. 
 Didst think that with this packet in my gown, 
 I should not be beforehand with thee ! Ho ! 
 Within there ! Ruffian hands would violate 
 Poseidon's sanctuary ; would murder me, 
 Poseidon's suppliant ; help, help, I say ! 
 
 [Pausanias rushes out. The Ephors and 
 some Priests enter by another door. 
 [To the Ephors.] Need ye aught further ? 
 
 First Ephor. Nay, nay. Reverend men, 
 
 [To the Priests. 
 Ask nothing, we beseech you ; nor breathe word 
 Of this ; great issues on your silence hang. 
 
86 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Hast thou the letters, brave Argilian ? 
 
 Slave. &y, safe beneath the good bronze, whence 
 his dagger 
 Flew back in shivers. 
 
 Second Ephor. Quick, let us begone. 
 
 Oh Priests, your suppliant is safe with us ; 
 We sent him hither. Haste to Sparta, we ; 
 The traitor will outstrip us, as it is ; 
 We must not give him time to raise the Helots. 
 It may be they are armed already. Come ! [Exeunt. 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 87 
 
 SCENE VII. 
 
 a building attached to the sanctuary of 
 Athene of the Brazen House at Sparta. 
 
 {Pausanias lying on a rude bed.) 
 
 PaUsanias. 
 ' r I V IS nearly midnight, for the full Moon rides 
 
 High in the South ; fair Orb, thou art as near 
 Thy setting as Pausanias his death ; 
 Not a jot nearer ; six more measured hours, 
 And thou wilt see the Sun ; and in as few 
 I sink to Hades ; my dull eyes shall cease 
 To fix thy failing beams e'en ere they fail. 
 The words of Cleonice are fulfilled : 
 I do die lone, and should she come not still, 
 E'en quit of her : Despised ? Well, so are all 
 Who fail : Deserted ? Yes, again ; 
 So are all those who fall : Betrayed, and starved, 
 And loathed by mine own Mother, whom I heard 
 
88 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Commending those who built these portals up. 
 I loathe her not, as Cleonice hers. 
 
 [After a pause. 
 Since I am doomed to die, I thank the Gods 
 For this my way of death ; no churl hath laid 
 A hand upon Pausanias, I die 
 A King whom none hath dared to touch, the guest 
 Of great Athene of the Brazen House ; 
 And Sparta watches in respectful awe 
 The ebbing of the life it dreads to take : 
 Such death is worthy of the Agidas ; 
 No violence, no blood, calm, solitary, 
 Unvexed, with none to wail, none to exult ; 
 And — those first hours of thirst and craving gone — 
 No pain : 'twere such a death as I had chosen ; 
 To pass, as the day passes into night. 
 
 [He pauses again. 
 Those eyes have ceased to haunt me, fear is dead 
 Of capture or attack ; no fevered dreams, 
 Or palsied vigils ; ever and anon 
 Sleep steals upon me, as it doth e'en now. 
 
 [He sleeps. Enter the ghost of Cleonice. 
 Ghost. [After watching awhile.] He sleeps, but 
 is not dead ; yet waketh not, 
 
Patisanias and Cleonice. 89 
 
 As once when I drew near ; his brows are calm, 
 His lips set in repose, his breathings faint, 
 But all untroubled. Where are you, ye Dreams, 
 My comrades in revenge, who once beset him, 
 And roused him from your tortures to behold 
 Mine eyeballs glaring on him in the gloom ? 
 Once more, once more, I pray you, gentle Dreams, 
 Flit round him, bid him sweat, and writhe, and start, 
 And leap up shivering to fall back again ; 
 Ah, grant me one more waking, but one more, 
 Ere he go hence, and be for ever free ! 
 My presence cannot rouse him. 
 
 [Enter Hermes. 
 
 Hermes. Maid, forbear ! 
 
 The hand of Death is on him ; I am here 
 Charged with my wonted office, to conduct 
 His spirit to the Shades. I suffer not 
 Or Ghost or Dream to torture those on whom 
 My wand is laid. Stand back, and let him die. 
 
 Ghost. And must my vengeance die ? 
 
 Hermes. Ay, and thy hate. 
 
 'Tis time that thou wert sated ; e'en the Gods 
 Lay their spent vengeance on the knees of Time ; 
 And what are men, that they should proudly claim 
 
90 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 Eternity for mortal wrath, and set 
 The value of their puny wrongs so high ! 
 Return thou to thine under-world, and there 
 Rest, and resume thy gentleness ; put off 
 Thy long disfigurement of rage and hate ; 
 Bewail, as well thou may'st, thy life cut short, 
 Thy shattered hopes of wedlock, children, home, 
 Lost sunlight, and the loveliness of earth, 
 Birds singing, and the sight of flocks and herds, 
 With all the changing pageant of the years, 
 And Death made feebly welcome at the close. 
 None knoweth when he setteth forth with Life 
 Where Lifeshall leadhim; give thinehands to Death, 
 And giving, make thy peace with Fate and Man ; 
 So shalt thou find thy dwelling in the Shades 
 More worthy than to wander up and down 
 A world that hath no longer place for thee, 
 Weeps not thy loss, nor broods over thy wrongs ; 
 And learn that converse with the gentle Dead 
 Is easier than the ravings of lone hate, 
 And resignation sweeter than revenge. 
 So go : Eurydice the well-beloved, 
 , Whom I twice brought there ; mild Polyxena, 
 Slain to revenge her brother's traitorous shaft 
 
Pausanias and Cleonice. 9 1 
 
 Which drank her lover's life on Hymen's steps ; 
 
 Innocent Glauce, slaughtered by a hate 
 
 Twin sister to thine own, and all as fierce ; 
 
 Antigone, long faithful sufferer, 
 
 Last victim of the curse of Pelops' line ; 
 
 And with these, goodly youths, who perished young ; 
 
 Atys, whom sad Adrastus, sport of fate, 
 
 Unwitting slew ; the pure Hippolytus, 
 
 O'ertaken by his father's reckless prayer ; 
 
 And Hector's blameless boy, Astyanax, 
 
 Whom fierce Pelides' son, insatiate 
 
 Of vengeance for Patroclus thrice avenged, 
 
 Hurled from the flaming heights of Ilion. 
 
 All these, and more, a goodly company, 
 
 Await thy coming in the Happy Fields. 
 
 Away, delay not ; leave this Soul to me. 
 
 Ghost. But shall he suffer nought for his ill deeds? 
 
 Hermes. Ask not the servant of the Mighty Gods 
 Of that which it concerns not thee to know, 
 Nor him to tell. Resume, I. say once more, 
 Thy gentleness ; leave sentence unto those 
 Who do apportion doom. This man hath borne 
 Much of that pain which purgeth. 
 
 Ghost. [Stow/y.] I relent. 
 
92 Pausanias and Cleonice. 
 
 How pale he looks, I ne'er saw aught so pale ; 
 This is the first time I have looked on death : 
 A little more, and I should pity him. 
 
 Hermes. Nay, but I know that thou dost pity him ; 
 'Tis well for him, and better still for thee ; 
 For pardon is the salve of souls that grant it. 
 But haste, away ! Men break the barriers 
 Wherewith they blocked these doors, lest he die here 
 And so Athene's wrath should fall on them. 
 
 [ Tlie Ghost departs. 
 Paus. [Faintfy.~\ Was it a dream, or did I see 
 her here 
 Bending above my head, with all the hate 
 Gone from her eyes, and in its place a light 
 Of tenderness and pity ? Dream or none, 
 My soul is fanned as by the wings of Peace, 
 And I am ten times readier to die. 
 
 [E?iter the Efihors with their assistants to 
 remove him. 
 
A VIGIL. 
 
A VIGIL. 
 
 "\ T 7"ARDERS of summer night 
 
 Watching for dawn, 
 Presences hallowing 
 
 Woodland and lawn, 
 Feel my soul cry to thee, 
 " Why hast thou gone from me, 
 
 Why hast thou gone?" 
 
 Voices untellable, 
 
 Mute save to me, 
 Make the air sweet with ruth ; 
 
 Hill, stream, and lea, 
 Birds half awakened, all 
 Answer my spirit call ; 
 
 Nought comes from thee. 
 
 Nay more, the pine tops moan 
 " Why seek him here ? " 
 
 And surlier night-winds chide 
 " Make us not drear ; 
 
96 A Vigil. 
 
 Our songs shall not be sighs 
 O'er any soul that dies, 
 However dear. 
 
 " Petal by petal, see, 
 Flower buds unfold, 
 
 Petal by petal each 
 Falls on the mould ; 
 
 He lies, as thou shalt lie, 
 
 Deaf to love's feeble cry, 
 When thou art cold." 
 
DAWN. 
 
 ' I "HE flame of my lamp is low, 
 
 The stones of my hearth are cold, 
 And gay young lights of the morning grow 
 On the line of the Eastern Wold. 
 
 As a tune in the distance dead, 
 
 As a lover that falleth away, 
 The wave of the sea that she loves hath fled 
 
 From the breast of the weeping bay. 
 
 Ere long shall the warm hill-side 
 Laugh back at the laughing Noon, 
 
 And the whispering lips of the truant tide 
 Breathe over the sands as soon. 
 
 But alas for the heart left bare 
 
 By a tide that shall never turn, 
 And the desolate eyes that must pine and stare 
 
 At an East that will never burn. 
 
L'INFERNO. CANTOS I.— IV. 
 
L'INFERNO. 
 CANTO I. 
 
 "|\ IX IDWAY upon the journey of our life, 
 I did recall myself, to find my path 
 Lost in the tangles of a darksome wood. 
 Ah me, how hard it is to tell what like 
 Were those wild thickets, rough, impenetrable, 
 The very thought whereof renews my fear. 
 Such bitterness it hath that Death itself 
 Were scarce more bitter ; yet, that I may treat 
 Of good found in them, I am fain to speak 
 Of sights diverse that I encountered there. 
 
 I cannot well recall mine entrance thither, 
 So fully was I holden as of sleep, 
 When first I wandered from the rightful way ; 
 But soon I reached the foot of a high Hill 
 Which rose where that Gorge ended which had 
 pierced 
 
102 U Inferno. 
 
 My heart with dread, and lifting up mine eyes 
 I saw its topmost shoulders, even then 
 Clothed in that Planet's rays which doth direct 
 All rightly by whatever paths they come. 
 Then somewhat was the terror quieted, 
 That through a night of such continued pain 
 Had troubled all the deep pools of my heart. 
 And like to one who, with spent breath, hath clomb 
 From out the ocean to the shore, and turns 
 To watch awestruck those waters perilous, 
 So did my soul, and still as if in flight, 
 Turn backward glances on that region, whence 
 No men who stayed therein, ere passed alive. 
 After brief space, and when my weary limbs 
 Had ta'en repose along that lone hill-side, 
 In such wise did I start upon my way, 
 That ever was my firmer foot the lower. 
 When, lo, ere yet the slope had well begun, 
 A Leopard, light and lithe exceedingly, 
 Clad in a spotted coat, which face to face 
 Did front me with persistence, and so blocked 
 Mine onward path, that many a time I turned 
 Half minded to retrace my steps. The hour 
 Was of the early morning, and the Sun 
 
Canto I. 103 
 
 Was mounting up among those stars which made 
 His company, what time the Love Divine 
 First into motion called those beauteous things. 
 So that the time and the sweet season, gave 
 Fair cause for confidence, as touching him 
 That gaily-coated Beast; 1 yet none so much 
 But that the aspect of a Lion, now 
 Appearing in the way, renewed my fear. 
 He made as he would come at me amain, 
 With head uplifted, and with famine's rage ; 
 The very air did seem, to quake at him. 
 A She- Wolf too that in her leanness looked 
 Freighted with cravings, one who many a soul 
 Hath brought ere now to dwell with misery, 
 Uprose, and with her apparition heaped 
 So vast a weight of dread on me that straight 
 I lost all hope of mounting summit-wards. 
 And as to one set eagerly on gain 
 Cometh that hour which worketh loss to him, 
 Forcing his tears, and saddening all his thought, 
 
 1 A doubtful passage. It may be that it should run thus : 
 
 So that the time and the sweet season, nay, 
 E'en that wild creature's gaily-spotted coat 
 Gave cause for confidence. 
 
104 V Inferno. 
 
 So me this restless and unceasing Beast 
 
 Little by little drave to where the Sun 
 
 Doth cease to speak the language of his light. 
 
 While thus I faltered back to lower ground, 
 
 Before mine eyes one self-presented stood 
 
 Who seemed from silence long grown faint of voice ; 
 
 To whom, when thus in that great Solitude 
 
 I saw him, " Pity me," I cried aloud, 
 
 " Whate'er thou art, or Shade, or living Man ! " 
 
 He answered me, " Not Man, though Man I was ; 
 
 Of Lombardy my Mother as my Sire, 
 
 And Mantuans both ; 'neath Julius was I born, 
 
 Albeit when near his end ; and in the times, 
 
 While yet the false and lying Gods had sway, 
 
 Under the good Augustus dwelt in Rome. 
 
 Poet I was, and of Anchises sang 
 
 That pious son who came to us from Troy, 
 
 After the burning of proud Ilion. 
 
 But thou, why turn again towards so much ill ? 
 
 Why not ascend the Mountain of Delight, 
 
 The origin and cause of every joy ? " 
 
 With modest brow thus did I answer him; 
 
 " Art thou then that Virgilius, the fount 
 
 Whence gush the streams of such large eloquence ? 
 
Canto I. 105 
 
 Glory and light of other bards, for me, 
 
 May the long zeal and steadfast love wherewith 
 
 Thy volumes I have sought, avail me now. 
 
 Thou art my master and begetter, thou 
 
 Alone art he from whom I did derive 
 
 The grand style that hath brought me my renown. 
 
 Thou seest yon beast, at sight of whom I turned ; 
 
 Defend me from her, oh illustrious Sage ; 
 
 She makes my pulses and my veins to tremble ! " 
 
 He saw me weeping, and thus made reply : 
 " 'Twere well for thee to take another way, 
 If thou wouldst quit this savage neighbourhood ; 
 For this same beast that caused thy cries, will let 
 None pass her, but stays all, and staying slays. 
 And, such her evil humour and condition, 
 She knows not how to glut her greedy moods, 
 But even with her food her famine grows. 
 Full many a beast she coupleth with, and shall 
 With many yet, until that Hound shall come, 
 Destined to work her mortal agony. 
 He shall not feast his soul on lands or gold, 
 But love and wisdom and all nobleness ; 
 From Feltro unto Feltro shall he reign, 
 And 'neath his sway our lowland Italy, 
 
106 L'Inferno. 
 
 For whom Camilla gave her virgin blood, 
 
 And Nisus, Turnus, and Euryalus, 
 
 Were wounded unto death, shall safety find. 
 
 But her through State and City shall he hunt 
 
 Until he house her back in Hell, wherefrom 
 
 Primeval Hate and Malice started her. 
 
 Wherefore my thought and my discernment is, 
 
 For thine advantage, that thou follow me ; 
 
 And I will be thy guide and lead thee hence, 
 
 Through that eternal space, where thou shalt hear 
 
 Shrieking Despair, and Spirits of old time 
 
 Shalt see, who wail over their second Death. 
 
 More, thou shalt see the souls that are content, 
 
 E'en in the flames, for that they hope to come, 
 
 Whenever it may be, among the blessed ; 
 
 To whom, if thou desirest to ascend, 
 
 A worthier Spirit than I shall be thy guide. 
 
 To Her will I commit thee when I go ; 
 
 For that Imperial One who reigns above, 
 
 Because I was rebellious to his laws, 
 
 Wills not that I bring any to his realms. 
 
 He rules throughout all space, but there he reigns ; 
 
 There is his City, there his Sovereign Throne ; 
 
 Thrice happy he whom He electeth thither." 
 
Canto I. 107 
 
 Then I to him : " Oh Poet, by that God, 
 I do beseech thee, whom thou knewest not — 
 For that I would escape this ill and worse — 
 Conduct me whither thou hast said ; that so 
 I may behold St. Peter's Gate, and those 
 Whose anguish thou dost tell me is so sad." 
 
 With that he started, and I followed him. 
 
io8 V Inferno. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 T"A AY was departing, and the darkened air 
 "^^^ Drew all the living creatures upon earth 
 Home from their toils ; I only, and alone, 
 As 'twere for battle, did prepare myself 
 For my dread passage and the pity of it, 
 Which memory, that errs not, shall recall. 
 Aid me, ye Muses, and thou lofty Sense 
 Of Genius, and thou too, oh Memory, 
 That on thyself hast graven all I saw, 
 For so shall thy nobility be shown. 
 I thus began, " Poet, who guidest me, 
 Consider well my strength if it avail, 
 Ere thou dost trust me to this arduous voyage. 
 Thou sayest that the Sire of Sylvius, 
 While subject to corruption in his flesh, 
 Into the world immortal did descend ; 
 But that the Adversary of all ill 
 
Canto II. 109 
 
 Should so far grace him, not unfitting seems 
 
 To one who thinketh worthily thereon, 
 
 When he remembereth the outcome high, 
 
 The Who, the What, that was to spring from him. 
 
 For true it is that he was foreordained, 
 
 In Heaven's Empyrean, ancestor 
 
 Of blessed Rome and her imperial sway, 
 
 Which two were 'stablished as the holy place 
 
 And seat of greater Peter's successor. 
 
 He by this quest, for which thou laudest him, 
 
 Learned things diverse that into causes grew 
 
 Of his own triumph and the Papal Gown. 
 
 Then later, went that way the Chosen Vessel, 
 
 To bring us confirmation of that faith 
 
 Which is the first step in Salvation's path. 
 
 But I, why should I go ? Who voucheth me ? 
 
 Neither /Eneas am I, nor yet Paul ; 
 
 Nor I nor others have me worthy deemed. 
 
 I fear, should I resign myself to go, 
 
 My going would prove folly ; thou art wise, 
 
 Thy thoughts express me better than my words." 
 
 As one who wills no more what once he willed, 
 
 But with new thoughts doth turn to purpose new, 
 
 Withdrawing wholly from his starting point, 
 
1 1 o L Inferno. 
 
 Such on that dark hillside did I become ; 
 And did by over pondering dissipate 
 My purpose, at the first so lightly made. 
 " If I thy speech have rightly understood," 
 Answered the Shade of the Highminded-one, 
 " Thy soul hath been attacked by coward fear, 
 Which oftentimes encumbereth a man, 
 And turns him back from honourable emprize, 
 As some false trick of sight a frightened beast. 
 But, that thou may'st resolve thee of thy doubt, 
 I will now tell thee why I came, and what 
 I heard when first my heart was grieved for thee. 
 I was with those whose state is a suspense, 
 When unto me one came who called to me ; 
 A Lady she, so blessed and so fair, 
 I prayed her to lay some command on me. 
 The glory of her eyes excelled the stars, 
 And in her own tongue she began to speak, 
 With the soft sweetness of an Angel's voice. 
 ' Oh Spirit of the courtly Mantuan, 
 Whose honour still endureth upon Earth, 
 And shall extend while Time prolongs itself, 
 A friend of mine, no friend of Fortune, meets 
 Such hindrance on the Desert Mountain-side, 
 
Canto IT. in 
 
 That he hath turned in terror ; and I fear, 
 
 From what I have heard tell of him in Heaven, 
 
 Lest by this time he be so far astray, 
 
 That I have come too late to his relief. 
 
 So go ; and with thy wealth of speech ornate, 
 
 And with all else that his deliverance needs, 
 
 Assist him, so that I may be consoled. 
 
 His Beatrice I am, who bid thee go ; 
 
 Thence come I whither I would fain return ; 
 
 'Tis Love hath moved me, and now makes me speak ; 
 
 When I shall be before my Lord again, 
 
 I will be frequent in my praise of thee.' 
 
 Then was she silent, and I thus rejoined : 
 
 ' Oh Lady, who alone in thy desert 
 
 Dost stand, through whom mankind excelleth all 
 
 That in the Heaven of smallest arc is found, 
 
 So grateful thy command, that e'en the time 
 
 Spent in the doing of it seems delay. 
 
 No need to further open out thy will ; 
 
 But tell me what the cause may be, wherefore 
 
 Thou hast not stayed thyself from coming down 
 
 To this low centre from the ampler space, 
 
 Whither e'en now thou burnest to return.' 
 
 ' Since 'tis thy wish to penetrate thus far 
 
U2 L' Inferno. 
 
 I will inform thee briefly,' she replied, 
 ' Why 'tis I have not feared to enter here. 
 Fear is but owed to what hath power to harm, 
 And things that cannot harm demand no fear. 
 So fashioned am I by the grace of God, 
 Your misery may not reach me, nor the flame 
 That burneth here uplift itself against me. 
 A gentle Lady dwelleth in high Heaven, 
 Who this same hindrance, about which I charge thee, 
 Doth so compassionate, that she breaks down 
 The sterner judgments that prevail on high. 
 She, bearing her request, Lucia sought, 
 And said, Thy faithful one hath need of thee ; 
 Him I commend to thee ; Lucia then, 
 The foe of all things cruel, rose and came 
 To where I sat with Rachel of'old time, 
 And said, " Oh, Beatrice, true praise of God, 
 Why not befriend him who did love thee so, 
 That for thy sake he left the common crowd ? 
 Dost thou not hear the misery of his plaint ? 
 Dost thou not see the Death he battleth with 
 Beside that flood which magnifies no sea ? " , 
 No worldling e'er towards gain so swiftly flew, 
 Or fled from loss, as I upon her words, 
 
Canto II. 113 
 
 Came downward hither from my happy seat, 
 
 Confiding in thy power of noble speech, 
 
 Which honoureth thee and those who hearken to it.' 
 
 So soon as she had ended all her charge, 
 
 Weeping she turned away her lustrous eyes, 
 
 Making me thus more eager to set forth ; 
 
 So then I came to thee, as she desired ; 
 
 And from the presence of that Savage Beast 
 
 I took thee, who had barred the way to thee, 
 
 Unto the Mountain Beautiful ; and now 
 
 What is it, why, why haltest thou ? And why 
 
 Find lodging in thy heart for coward fear ? 
 
 Why fail in ardour and undauntedness, 
 
 When three such blessed Ladies from Heaven's Court 
 
 Have shown their care for thee, and my words too 
 
 Have given thee promise of so grand a boon ? " 
 
 As flowerets that beneath the chills of night 
 
 Have lain declined and closed, soon as the Sun 
 
 Burns white upon them, raise themselves, and stand 
 
 Erect, and spread out open on their stems, 
 
 So with my wearied valour fared it then, 
 
 And through my heart such goodly ardour coursed 
 
 That in undaunted fashion I began : 
 
 " Right pitiful is she who succoured me ; 
 
ii4 U Inferno. 
 
 And courteous thou, whose swift obedience bore 
 The message true that she did charge thee with ; 
 Thy words have roused in me so keen a will 
 That to mine earlier purpose I return. 
 Go forward then ; henceforth our wills are one ; 
 My teacher thou, my master, and my lord." 
 So spake I to him, and when he moved on 
 I entered on the steep and tangled way. 
 
Canto III, 1 1 5 
 
 T 
 
 CANTO III. 
 HROUGH me ye pass into the doleful 
 
 f realm j 
 
 Through me ye pass into eternal pain ; 
 Through me ye pass among the lost and damned ; 
 Justice impelled my Founder's lofty will ; 
 Divine Omnipotence constructed me, 
 Supernal Wisdom, and primeval Love ; 
 Before I was, no things created were, 
 Save what had been from all eternity, 
 And henceforth I eternally endure ; 
 All hope abandon ye who enter here." 
 These words in sadly tinted character 
 I saw upon a portal high inscribed ; 
 " Master," said I, " their sense seems hard to me." 
 But he to me, as one familiar, " Here 
 Tis fitting that thou leave mistrust behind, 
 And fitting here that timorousness should die. 
 
u6 V Inferno. 
 
 We to that place of which I spake to thee 
 
 Are come, where thou shalt see the wretched folk 
 
 In whom the good of Reason hath been lost." 
 
 With that he placed his hand on mine, and so 
 
 With show of comfortable countenance 
 
 Led me within the pale of secret things. 
 
 There sighs, and plaining, and shrill notes of pain, 
 
 Resounded through the starless atmosphere ; 
 
 And forthwith set me weeping ; tongues diverse, 
 
 And outcries horrible, words of uttered woe, 
 
 Accents of rage, voices both loud and faint, 
 
 And mid all these, the sound of smiting hands, 
 
 Made up a tumult that went round and round 
 
 Unceasing, in that ever-darkened air, 
 
 Like sand in spirals when the whirlwind blows. 
 
 Then I, who wore confusion like a coif, 
 
 Said, " Master, tell me what is this I hear ? 
 
 And who are these who seem thus woe-begone ? " 
 
 And he to me : " This miserable state 
 
 They keep, the wretched souls of those who lived 
 
 Alike unworthy or of praise or blame. 
 
 And with their caitiff company are mixed 
 
 Those Angels who rebelled not, but who yet 
 
 Stood not for God, but for themselves alone : 
 
Canto III. 1 1 7 
 
 Heaven drave them forth, to keep its beauty pure, 
 
 And the infernal deep received them not, 
 
 Lest haply should the damned take glory of them." 
 
 And I : " What doth befall them dire enough 
 
 To rouse such lamentation ? " He replied : 
 
 " They have no hope of death ; and this their life, 
 
 So blind, so base, doth make them envious 
 
 Of every other fate ; the world allows 
 
 No record of them good or ill ; and them 
 
 Mercy and Justice do alike disdain. 
 
 Let us not speak of them ; look, and pass on." 
 
 Then I, who did so look, a banner saw 
 
 That in its whirling speed all pause abjured ; 
 
 And after it there came a train of folk 
 
 So long, I never should have thought to dower 
 
 Death with th' undoing of so vast a horde. 
 
 Among them did I note full many an one, 
 
 And saw and recognized the shade of him 
 
 Who out of vileness made the Great Renouncement ; 
 
 And forthwith and assuredly perceived 
 
 That this was the low caitiff company 
 
 By God and by his foes alike abhorred. 
 
 Those abjects, who had never truly lived, 
 
 Went naked, sorely goaded by the stings 
 
n8 L' Inferno. 
 
 Of wasps and gadflies that abounded there ; 
 These made their faces all to run with blood, 
 Which mingling with their tears, and dropping down, 
 By loathsome worms was gathered at their feet. 
 
 Then, looking further on, more folk I saw 
 Along the bank of a great stream, and said : 
 " Now, Master, grant to me that I may know 
 Who are all these, and what the ordinance 
 That seems to make them eager to pass over — 
 If so far I may trust the feeble light ? " 
 And he to me : " This shall be told to thee 
 So soon as we have planted a firm foot 
 Upon the joyless strand of Acheron." 
 On this, with shamed and downcast eyes, in fear 
 Lest what I said had vexed him aught, I kept 
 Myself from speech until we reached the stream. 
 There, lo, an Old Man, white with ancient hair, 
 Made towards us in a galley, shouting loud : 
 " Woe to you, wicked souls ! Indulge no hope 
 Of ever seeing Heaven ; behold, I come 
 To bear you over to that other shore, 
 Into eternal darkness, frost and fire. 
 For thee, thou living one, who standest there, 
 Depart thou from among these, who are dead." 
 
Canto III. 1 1 9 
 
 But seeing that I still departed not, 
 He said : " By other paths, from other ports, 
 Not here, shalt thou find passage to that strand ; 
 A lighter bark than mine must carry thee." 
 But unto him my Guide : " Be not provoked 
 Oh, Charon ; this is willed where what is willed, 
 Because 'tis willed, is done; demand no more." 
 Thereon were quieted the shaggy cheeks 
 Of him that Boatman of the dark lagoon, 
 Who round about his eyes had rings of flame. 
 But all those Spirits, naked and outworn, 
 Changed colour, and did gnash their teeth, whenas 
 They heard his cruel words ; they did blaspheme 
 The very name of the Lord God, and curse 
 Their parents, and all human kind, the time 
 And place of their begetting, and their birth. 
 Yet none the less they turned them, one and all, 
 Much weeping, towards th' accursed shore, that 
 
 bourne 
 Which waiteth all who hold not God in fear. 
 Charon, the Demon of the brazier eyes, 
 Did beckon them, and gather them all in, 
 Beating up every sluggard with his oar. 
 And as in autumn leaves begin to fall, 
 
1 20 L Inferno. 
 
 One after other, till the branch looks down, 
 To see 1 all its own spoils bestrew the earth, 
 E'en so that evil seed of Adam fared ; 
 For one by one they flung them from that shore, 
 At Charon's call, like falcons to the lure. 
 Then on the dusky waters they put forth ; 
 And ere they had achieved the further side, 
 Another crowd had gathered upon this. 
 " Oh, son of mine," the courteous Master said, 
 " All those who die under the wrath of God 
 Assemble hither out of every land ; 
 And prompt they are to pass the stream, for so 
 Justice Divine doth goad them, that their fear 
 Turns e'en to eagerness ; no Spirit good 
 E'er passes by this way ; therefore be sure ' 
 That if this Charon doth complain of thee, 
 Thou well may'st read the import of his plaint.'' 
 He scarce had ended, when the gloomy tracts 
 Shook with so vast a quaking, that e'en now 
 I sweat for terror at the thought thereof. 
 
 1 Some commentators read " rende alia terra," but Mr. 
 Vernon says that " vede alia terra," which I have adopted, 
 has the support of all the best MSS. 
 
Canto III. 1 2 1 
 
 The tear-bedabbled ground gave forth a blast, 
 And with the blast a blood-red lightning flash, 
 Which, spreading round, laid all my senses low : 
 I fell, like one whom slumber seizes on. 
 
122 L 'Inferno. 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 A HEAVY thunder broke the spell of sleep 
 ■* *" Within my brain, and made me start like one 
 O'er-roughly wakened ; to my feet I rose, 
 And casting round my renovated eyes, 
 Strove with fixed gaze to learn where I had come. 
 In sooth upon the brink I found myself 
 Above that dolorous and abysmal vale, 
 Which gathers into one tumultuous tone 
 The utterance of innumerable woes. 
 So dark was it, of such profundity, 
 Such gloom, that all in vain adown the deeps 
 I peered ; no single thing might I discern. 
 " Now to the rayless regions there below 
 Let us descend," all pale the Poet said ; 
 " I will go first, thou follow." But to this, 
 I who had marked his change of hue, replied : 
 
Canto IV. 123 
 
 " If thou, the wonted comfort of my fears, 
 Thyself dost fear, how dare I follow thee ? " 
 Then he to me : " The anguish of the folk 
 Who are beneath us here, upon my cheek 
 Doth paint a pity that thou deemest fear ; 
 Let us be going, for the way is long." 
 Therewith he launched himself, and so enforced 
 Mine entrance on that circle which first makes 
 A girdle to th' abyss ; no sound I caught 
 Of mourning loud, but as it were of sighs 
 That made a tremor in th' eternal air, 
 And came of sadness untormented, such 
 As held those vast and varied companies 
 Of children and of women and of men. 
 
 Then unto me the Master good, " Albeit 
 Thou askest not what Spirits these may be 
 Whereon thou gazest, I would have thee know, 
 Ere thou goest further, that they have not sinned ; 
 But that their merit, whatsoe'er it were, 
 Failed, for the lack of that Baptismal Grace 
 Which makes the portal of thy faith and creed. 1 
 
 1 If "parti" be the true reading and not "porta," the 
 line should run : 
 
 " A part essential of thy faith and creed." 
 
124 L Inferno. 
 
 And, for they died ere Christ had come and gone, 
 Not rightly was to God their worship paid. 
 And as they are, I am ; for such default 
 Alone, and for none other, are we lost ; 
 But so far only suffer, that we live 
 Life without hope, eternal in desire." 
 
 While thus I heard him speak, upon my heart 
 Great sadness seized, that, held in such suspense, 
 Folk of great worth should in those borders dwell. 
 " Tell me, my Master, tell me, oh my Lord," 
 Said I, of fresh assurance ever fain 
 In that true faith which doth all errors quell, 
 " Hath ever any by his own desert, 
 Or by another's, issued forth from hence, 
 And afterward been blessed ? " Divining well 
 My covert speech, he answered : " New was I 
 To this estate, when saw I hitherward 
 A Mighty One approaching, signed and crowned 
 As after victory ; from out our midst 
 The shade of our First Parent did he draw, 
 Abel's, his son, and Noah's, and with these 
 Moses the lawgiver, and Abraham 
 Th' obedient patriarch, David the king, 
 And Israel with his father and his sons, 
 
Canto IV. 125 
 
 And Rachel, her for whom he wrought so long, 
 With many another, bearing them to bliss ; 
 And I would have thee know that ere these went 
 No human souls were saved." 
 
 While thus he spake, 
 We had not stayed our steps, but passed the grove, 
 The grove, I say, of densely-planted Souls ; 
 Nor had our path gone far from that first spot 
 Where I had slumbered, 1 when I marked a fire 
 That from the dark a conquered hemisphere 
 Illumined ; we therefrom a little space 
 Were still removed, but not so distant yet 
 That I might not, though but in part, discern 
 What honourable folk possessed the place. 
 " Oh thou who on all Science and all Art 
 Conferrest honour, tell me, who are these 
 Whom honour from the general fashion keeps 
 Thus parted ? " So I spake ; and he to me : 
 " The name that doth distinguish their renown 
 
 1 Ought we to read "sonno"hereor "sommo?" Vernon 
 says "sonno," and I follow him. If it were "sommo" the 
 line should run : 
 
 " Nor had our path yet led us far adown 
 That side the summit." 
 
126 & Inferno. 
 
 In that thy life above, hath gained for them 
 This favour and advancement out of Heaven." 
 And with the word, I heard a voice which said, 
 " Give honour's greeting to the Bard sublime ! 
 His Shade, which left us, hath returned again." 
 And as that voice ceased and grew still, behold, 
 I saw four stately Shades approaching us ; 
 Their semblance told of neither woe nor joy ; 
 And my good Master thereupon began : 
 " Mark him who cometh with that sword in hand, 
 Who leadeth the three others as their lord ; 
 Homerus he, the Poet Sovereign ; 
 Horatius cometh next, the Satirist ; 
 Ovidius is the third ; Lucanus last, 
 Because with me they all in common bear 
 That name which erst the single voice did utter, 
 They honour me, and therein do they well." 
 
 So saw I gathered there that goodly school 
 Of him the lord of loftiest song, who soars 
 On eagle pinions high above them all. 
 But they, after brief converse held apart, 
 With sign of salutation turned to me ; 
 Whereat my Master smiled for graciousness ; 
 And still more honour did they pay to me, 
 
Canto TV. 127 
 
 They made me of their company, and I 
 Stood sixth amid such grouped Intelligence. 
 Then moved we on together towards the light, 
 Making discourse, whereof my silence now 
 Is all as seemly as itself was fair. 
 So to a noble castle's foot we came, 
 Sevenfold encircled within lofty walls, 
 And guarded round by a fair rivulet 
 Wherethrough we crossed, as over a dry ground ; 
 And under seven portals did I pass, 
 With those five Sages for my company, 
 Until we reached a meadow fresh and green, 
 Wherein were folk, slow-gazing, grave of mien, 
 With carriage as of much authority, 
 And voices sweet and low, but rare of speech. 
 
 We to one side did draw ourselves apart, 
 Upon a space, clear, luminous, and high, 
 Whence we could gaze on all ; there fronting us, 
 Upon th' enamelled sward, were shown to me 
 Great Shades, whom yet I glory to have seen. 
 Electra, with a goodly company, 
 I saw, 'mongst whom were Hector and y£neas, 
 Caesar, in panoply, with falcon eyes, 
 Camilla, and the Queen Penthesilea ; 
 
128 L' Inferno. 
 
 While on the other side the Latian King 
 
 Was seated with his child Lavinia. 
 
 I saw that Brutus who did hunt out Tarquin, 
 
 Lucretia, Julia, Martia, Cornelia ; 
 
 And, all apart, the lonely Saladin. 
 
 A little higher did I lift mine eyes 
 
 To where the Master of all those who know 
 
 Sat 'mid the Philosophic Family. 
 
 Him do they all regard, him honour pay. 
 
 In front of all the others, nigh to him, 
 
 There Plato did I see, and Socrates, 
 
 Democritus, who would to Chance assign 
 
 The making of the world ; Diogenes, 
 
 Thales, and with him Anaxagoras, 
 
 Empedocles and Zeno, Heraclitus, 
 
 And that good searcher of their qualities 
 
 In all things, Dioscorides ; there, too, 
 
 Orpheus I saw, Linus, and Tullius, 
 
 Euclides, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, 
 
 Galen and Avicenna, and him last, 
 
 Averrhoes, who made the Commentary. 
 
 I may not now rename them all in full, 
 For my vast theme doth goad me on, and makes 
 My words oft lag behind the facts they tell. 
 
Canto IV. 129 
 
 Our company of six did wane to two ; 
 My wise guide brought me forth another way, 
 Out of the quiet to the quaking air, 
 And so to parts where no light shines I came. 
 
DE PROFUNDIS. 
 
 A LONE, alone, blind, motionless, and dumb — 
 *" For these unuttered musings are not speech — 
 No sense, save solitary consciousness 
 Of mind, with only memory for food, 
 One ceaseless cud of bitter provender, 
 Consumed but to be reconsumed. And yet, 
 If this be life, I am : no sight, no sound, 
 But blackness infinite, and unredeemed, 
 As are the silence and the solitude. 
 Albeit an universe unfathomable, 
 The spaces round about me, crowd and crush me; 
 They hold me like a solid dungeon vault 
 Impenetrable, sealed, insphered, and stiff 
 With rigid airs of rayless adamant. 
 Less darkly should expended planets hang, 
 Dead in their orbits, round a parent sun 
 
132 De Profundis. 
 
 As dead as they; for through their gloom must pierce 
 
 The far off glimmer of unnumbered stars, 
 
 With faint alloy of recollected light, 
 
 To mar the fulness of extinguishment, 
 
 And make the pall that wraps their cosmic death 
 
 A pallid imperfection. 
 
 Memories 
 Of what I was, and what they were who loved me, 
 Sweep through me in a never-ending round 
 Of bootless chronicle, o'ergraven each 
 With mine own sentence self-adjudged ; a tale 
 Of forfeit chance and squandered power, the choice 
 Of apathy and low content, high aims 
 Abandoned for the love of meaner things ; 
 And every stage of the detested record, 
 Like saints upon the margins of a missal, 
 Studded with ghosts of those neglected ones, 
 Whose love had borne me upward into Heaven, 
 Had I but clung to them. None look on me ; 
 They pass me by, as they had been a part 
 Of other histories than mine, and I 
 Nought, as I am, to them. Ah, happy Souls, 
 How could ye own a kinship with the lost, 
 How keep a smirching memory of the damned, 
 
De Profundis. 133 
 
 Or pity what 'twere grief and sin to pity, 
 
 Ay, look on that, which e'en to look on, were 
 
 Foul treason to your own felicity ! 
 
 And were 't not so, how could ye comfort me ? 
 
 The shapes, that float before me and refloat, 
 
 Are only phantoms of your phantoms, not 
 
 Your blessed shades themselves, but shadows cast 
 
 Athwart that ceaseless and rebuking pageant, 
 
 Which mine unsleeping spirit ever paints 
 
 To feed Remorse and recreate Despair. 
 
 Farewell ; ah, would that I could say farewell ; 
 For then the curse would not be all it is ; 
 I might perchance forget you, as you me, 
 And lose a pang : but that would be to rend 
 Damnation's mantle, and disclose a glimpse, 
 A presage of Oblivion, that begun, 
 Might spread throughout my being at the last 
 A blessed canker of annihilation, 
 To eat up misery ; and so release, 
 Not me alone, nay, nay, not me alone, 
 But all the myriad millions of the damned, 
 In one wide universal amnesty, 
 And make a peace out of Hell's solitudes : 
 But this, alas, I know shall never be. 
 
CLOUDS. 
 
 '"T" X HE Earth is curtained two clouds thick, 
 
 ■*• Like blind eyes sleeping ; 
 Or one who lies both lone and sick, 
 Outworn with weeping. 
 
 The skies will clear for Earth, but ne'er 
 
 For blind eyes waking ; 
 And sick and lonely hearts must wear 
 
 Their chords to breaking. 
 
I DUE CALICI. 
 
 T T E was a poet-painter, hard, precise 
 
 -"- -*• In treatment, loved the prim andantique style 
 
 Men called pre-Raphaelite, yet sure of touch, 
 
 Daring in thought, and with rich colour ; knew 
 
 What 'twas to paint a lily's, pansy's heart, 
 
 As well as the petal-texture ; he showed once 
 
 A picture I remember with delight, 
 
 Simple, mysterious ; three figures ; one, 
 
 A woman in a white and amber gown, 
 
 And with a face, saint's, martyr's, what you will, 
 
 E'en such a saint as men make martyr of; 
 
 With her, a man more earthy but as strong. 
 
 And third, a spiritual shape, long-winged, 
 
 His batlike vans, outstretched, translucent, gay, 
 
 With opal tints ; a chalice in each hand 
 
 Held forth for choosing : 'Twas a canvas far 
 
1 36 / Due Calici. 
 
 Removed from its near fellows, and I stood 
 Looking, and pondering long on what it meant, 
 Or might mean, to its maker, till I wrought 
 — (Man loquitur) — its poem into these : 
 
 The bourne is reached at last, the hour hath come, 
 
 The Phantom who hath walked with us till now, 
 And drawn our spirits onward veiled and dumb, 
 
 Flings back the mantle from his dazzling brow ; 
 He cries, "Stay, ere ye part, behold, 'tis I, 
 
 The Master whom ye knew not ; I have laid 
 My hand upon your lives ; to strive or cry 
 
 Were to make bitter what is surely made 
 Not without sweetness, so ye but submit, 
 But cruel past all fear, should ye dare question it." 
 
 He flingeth back his mantle, and stands bare ; 
 
 A thunder cloud bright with the baffled sun ; 
 The sum of all that our foreshadowings were ; 
 
 Terror and Hope incorporate and made one. 
 Ah, Phantom of destruction and dismay, 
 
 Why let us not ere this thy features learn ? 
 We might have stayed once, now we cannot stay ; 
 
 Have turned once, now we know not how to turn ; 
 
/ Due Calici. 1 37 
 
 Once hand from hand we had endured to sever; 
 Now heart hath grown to heart, and must grow on 
 for ever. 
 
 But even while I plead, ah Love of mine, 
 
 He putteth forth a chalice in each hand 
 Filled to the brim with misery's blackest wine ; 
 
 And from his bright mouth cometh the command 
 "Choose ye and drink 1" Mark, how one gohlet swims 
 
 With bitter herbs that tincture it anew, 
 While nightshade wreaths are bound about the rims ; 
 
 The other, and the nearest, Love, to you, 
 Hath its dark draught redeemed by floating flowers, 
 And ambient flecks of gold that image golden hours. 
 
 I may not tell thee of their properties, 
 
 For thou must choose, my shrinking one, not I ; 
 As is most meet, in thine election lies 
 
 The future of the love that cannot die. 
 Wouldst thou one farewell ne'er to be renewed, 
 
 Eternal absence, memory's salveless stings, 
 Life in a rayless vault of solitude 
 
 Made hideous by the din of outer things ? 
 Then let us drain the first, and get us gone, 
 With mute lips and closed eyes, to live life down alone. 
 
"138 I Due Calici. 
 
 But if — ah sweet one, thou hast chosen aright ! 
 
 See, see, he hath dashed down the deadlier cup; 
 How its spilt poison doth the herbage blight, 
 
 Its very nightshade wreath hath withered up, 
 And all its bitter herbs are charred to dust ; 
 
 And as I spurn the hated thing away, 
 Beneath my feet its metal breaks in rust ; 
 
 On Love's high forehead gentler glories play ; 
 He smiles, and into that thou holdest throws 
 A shower of golden flecks till the dark liquor glows. 
 
 'Tis done, 'tis done; pierce through thy needless veil, 
 
 Thou Moon ; ye low Winds into whispers grow ; 
 And Breeze, and Beam, call up the Nightingale, 
 
 We would not hear our hearts beat as we go ! 
 For all is joy for us to-night, to-night 
 
 That is no threshold of a long regret 
 For something passed for ever out of sight ; 
 
 Love showeth mercy to his children yet, 
 And tempereth the fate, that makes us his 
 In such unkindly sort, with kindly promises. 
 
SONGS. 
 
LA PLAINTE DU BERGER. 
 
 T T APPY things mate 
 A Both small and great, 
 But the widowed owl seeketh her tree ; 
 And I will away to the deeps of the wood, 
 For my love hath forgotten me ! 
 
 Ah hard, false maid, from crag to crag 
 
 Kind echoes put thy faith to shame, 
 They help my failing voice to drag 
 
 The useless burden of thy name 
 Over the barren mountain side, 
 
 And through the windings of the wood, 
 Our wood wherein I go to hide 
 
 For shame of thee and thy falsehood : 
 
 Happy things mate, 
 Both small and great, 
 
142 La Plaint 'e du Berger. 
 
 But the widowed owl seeketh her tree ; 
 And I will away to the deeps of the wood, 
 For my love hath forgotten me ! 
 
 Ah faithful echoes, do not mar 
 
 The silence any more for me, 
 Her name with all it meets doth jar, 
 
 Though once so sweet in glade and lea ; 
 And sweetest then, when we two sang 
 
 It chancing in some olden rhyme, 
 And ye took up our songs, and rang 
 
 Them o'er and o'er for your pastime : 
 
 Happy things mate, 
 Both small and great, 
 But the widowed owl seeketh her tree ; 
 And I will away to the deeps of the wood, 
 For my love hath forgotten me ! 
 
 'Twas summer then, 'tis winter now, 
 But spring, the lover's hope, is near, 
 
 And draws my heart to ponder how 
 Her heart might open with the year, 
 
 And find a home perchance for mine, 
 
La Plainte du Berger. 143 
 
 And make fresh summer evenings glow, 
 As glow those did, with love's sunshine ; 
 Ah no, vain winter dreams, ah no : 
 
 Happy things mate, 
 
 Both small and great, 
 But the widowed owl seeketh her tree ; 
 And I will away to the deeps of the wood, 
 For my love hath forgotten me ! 
 
AT ARM'S LENGTH. 1 
 
 "T^v EAD rose leaves, lily petals, heliotropes, 
 ^~^ Crowns, flower tipped still, of fruited mig- 
 nonette ; 
 Gather and burn them, they are withered hopes 
 Of that gone summer we had best forget. 
 
 Woe upon April's maidenlike deceits, 
 
 Her flowery boons that summer was to bring ; 
 
 And woe again on June her sister's cheats, 
 E'en falser than the promise of the spring. 
 
 What have we brought each other, you and I ? 
 
 Unuttered vows that failed upon the tongue, 
 A hand once pressed perchance, a single sigh, 
 
 Songs set to thoughts of flame, but left unsung. 
 
 1 Suggested by a picture of Mr. Boughton's in the New 
 Gallery Exhibition of 1900. 
 
At Arms Length. 145 
 
 Each shunned the goal that neither seemed to see ; 
 
 Each knew the truth that neither dared to tell ; 
 What spirit colloquy could briefer be, 
 
 Begun and dying on one word, " Farewell " ? 
 
 Poor relics of the lily and the rose ! 
 
 How the dull flame their precious litter feeds ; 
 But mark, it yields no perfume as it glows 
 
 More subtle than the smoke of coarser weeds. 
 
 The pyre dies down • it makes but a grey spot 
 With blackened herbage for a narrow hem ; 
 
 Nay, these are sacred ashes, spurn them not ; 
 But leave them here, and me to gather them. 
 
A SERENADE. 
 
 \T IGHT-WIND, tenderly bend 
 
 Over my lover and say, 
 " Lady thy wandering friend 
 Met with me far away ; 
 
 " And bade me whisper to thee, 
 As I passed by thy southern home, 
 
 That the heart should a lingerer be 
 However the wearer roam." 
 
 Loitering wind, why stay ? 
 
 Fly to her chamber, and speak 
 The words that I bid thee, and lay 
 
 Thy lip on the maiden's cheek. 
 
 And with it a dewdrop clear 
 
 As her eye when she waketh, and then 
 Bid her know both the kiss and the tear 
 
 Have come from a northern glen. 
 
A STORM. 
 
 ' I "HE first storm from the westward rings 
 
 October's funeral knell ; 
 Across my lawn the sea-wind sings 
 " Farewell, farewell ! " 
 
 The falling leaves and shredded flowers 
 
 Whirl past my feet pell-mell ; 
 I cry to these, as to dead hours, 
 
 "Farewell, farewell!" 
 
 The hours that shone, the flowers that blew 
 
 Beneath your eyes' soft spell, 
 Grew dull and died to hear from you 
 
 " Farewell, farewell ! " 
 
 Ah, let not Love, my loved one, die, 
 
 Nor his departing swell 
 The careless west-wind's cruel cry 
 
 " Farewell, farewell ! " 
 
WRITTEN TO A SWISS TUNE. 
 
 T^HE dawn delays, the midday fadeth, 
 And nights grow chilly, dear, 
 And nights grow chilly, dear ; 
 A grayer dew our meadow braideth, 
 The weary winter months are near : 
 Ah, then, the summer day 
 Why need it pass away ? 
 Ah, cruel heart, why say, 
 Thou wouldst be true alway ? 
 Adown the mountain creep the snows, 
 And summer love with summer goes. 
 
 Our boldest flock will never wander 
 
 Beyond the valley, dear, 
 
 Beyond the valley, dear ; 
 Nor can I bring my heart to ponder 
 
 On what may chance another year. 
 
Written to a Swiss Tune. 149 
 
 Ah, then, the summer day, 
 
 Why need it pass away ? 
 
 Ah, cruel heart, why say, 
 
 Thou wouldst be true alway ? 
 Adown the mountain creep the snows, 
 And summer love with summer goes. 
 
 The village wood our farewells bounded, 
 As I stood watching thee, 
 As I stood watching thee ; 
 Soon through the pines thy yodel sounded, 
 Too light for my poor heart and me : 
 Ah, then, the summer day, 
 Why need it pass away ? 
 Ah, cruel heart, why say, 
 Thou wouldst be true alway ? 
 Adown the mountain creep the snows, 
 And summer love with summer goes. 
 
 I hear it still, thy phrase of parting, 
 
 Thy cold " Auf wieder sehen," 
 
 Thy cold " Auf wieder sehen ; " 
 To me, who felt the tear-drop starting 
 
 From eyes that sought for thine in vain. 
 
1 50 Written to a Swiss Tune. 
 
 Ah, then, the summer day, 
 
 Why need it pass away ? 
 
 Ah, cruel heart, why say, 
 
 Thou wouldst be true alway ? 
 Adown the mountain creep the snows, 
 And summer love with summer goes, 
 
 Ah, happy vale, though winter bind thee, 
 For thee the spring shall come, 
 For thee the spring shall come ; 
 And thy lost song-birds flock to find thee, 
 While my lone heart lies dark and dumb. 
 Ah, then, the summer day, 
 Why need it pass away ? 
 Ah, cruel heart, why say, 
 Thou wouldst be true alway ? 
 Adown the mountain creep the snows, 
 And summer love with summer goes. 
 
LINES. 
 
 T^ ED leaves are driven 
 -*-*" Hither and thither, 
 Frost-smitten garden plots 
 
 Shrivel and wither ; 
 Winds have grown wild again, 
 Winter resumes her reign, 
 My heart renews its pain, 
 Love me for ever ! 
 
 Summer is dead and gone, 
 
 Autumn lies bare, 
 Chill o'er the wrecks of both 
 
 Breatheth despair ; 
 Such warmth as summer brought 
 Such calm as autumn taught, 
 All, all hath gone for nought, 
 
 Love me for ever ! 
 
152 Lines. 
 
 Lone hearts must always 
 
 Droop with the year, 
 Moan with the winter blast, 
 
 Solace and cheer, 
 Such as in Nature lies, 
 Dies as a season dies, 
 Oh, let those changeless eyes 
 
 Love me for ever ! 
 
 Once more that look for me, 
 
 Once more that smile, 
 Here on my bosom, love, 
 
 Rest thou the while ; 
 Deep and true, deep and true ; 
 Better than heaven's blue, 
 Steep my heart through and through, 
 
 Thus, thus for ever ! 
 
LE CCEUR DE BEAUMANOIR. 
 
 A LOVE STORY. 
 IN THREE BOOKS. 
 
LE CGEUR DE BEAUMANOIR. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 ' I ''HERE flows a river in the west of France, 
 
 That parteth two fair provinces, itself 
 The fairest thing in each of them, and I 
 Have loved it, and have traced through summer days 
 Of tender meditation all its course ; 
 And in its severing floods have seen the fate 
 That holdeth lives asunder silently, 
 And in its beauty seen that love which still 
 Is lovely, none the less for bringing doom. 
 With varied charm it flows from source to sea, 
 But midway lies the fairest reach of all, 
 For there the waters broaden to a lake 
 Broken by grassy islets, and sunk deep 
 In uplands, that are glad with flowery corn, 
 And patches of hill pasture rough with knolls 
 
156 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Of bush and boulder ; from the banks below, 
 
 Behind a marge of water-willows, fringed 
 
 With many a rood of marsh plant rush and flag, 
 
 Far into the clear shallows, group by group, 
 
 Their green shafts glinting in the vaporous air, 
 
 High pointing poplars shoot in curves that mark 
 
 The gentle figure of the shores ; above 
 
 The tillage and the belt of pasture land, 
 
 Thick oak woods, out of which the white crags gleam, 
 
 Close skyward everywhere. 
 
 Athwart the east, 
 Whence the stream spreads, a larger island lies, 
 Whereon the ruins of a Monastery, 
 With chapel, garden walls, and cloisters, stand, 
 Flanked by towered water-gates, that north andsouth 
 Lead down to rocks from which two bridges spring, 
 And yoke it to the mainland on each side : 
 While opposite— there being a space of plain 
 Up river some few miles on either hand — 
 Twin quays and alleys of a little town, 
 Fronting each other, with the stream between, 
 Stretch eastwards : the church ruins in their midst 
 Rise high with arch and jagged architrave, 
 Backed by the river-reaches and the sky ; 
 
Book I. 157 
 
 While round these, vine, fig, ivy, apple, and plane, 
 And much else, the untended aftergrowth 
 Of monkish horticulture, wave and climb. 
 Within the precincts of the Abbey dwelt 
 The Cure" of the town ; a gentle, still, 
 And shambling creature, with a shattered mien 
 Like his own ruins ; and, as they were, nought, 
 Save that he was in soul, as they in form, 
 A record and a relic. He was stored 
 With annals of the Order, and these made 
 To him all history and all delight, 
 Knowledge, love, reverence ; they were to him 
 Antiquity ; the great tide of the world 
 He only knew where in their chronicles 
 It surged against the Fathers, as at whiles 
 The waters of the lake in tempest lashed 
 The Abbey landing-steps ; their graveyard made 
 The range of his dead hope ; and unto him 
 Religion and the Faith he breathed in were 
 Two things, like him, of lost inheritance 
 On earth — they being gone — till in God's time 
 They or their like should come again. 
 
 One day 
 He found me loitering in the cloistered court 
 
158 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Where He the bones of all the Brotherhood, 
 
 From the first Abbot to the last, who died 
 
 So fitly, that his " Nunc Dimittis " rang 
 
 E'en while the phrenzied mob, that drave them forth, 
 
 Was yelling at the water-gates. I stood 
 
 Among the orderless array of tombs, 
 
 Fronting one slab, whereon a well-worn rim 
 
 Below its tracery still showed the name, 
 
 " Edouard de Beaumanoir : " and underneath, 
 
 Upon the central tablet of one side, 
 
 Below the broken line that told his age 
 
 And birth and death years, these fewwords still clear — 
 
 So clear, I read some present tendance there — 
 
 " All but his heart is here ; " and while I mused 
 
 On where the heart might be, and why not here, 
 
 And what the tale, if any, up he came, 
 
 The little clumsy Cure, bowing low, 
 
 With many backward thrustings of his heel 
 
 Against his sash-fringes, and many a sweep 
 
 Of his broad beaver hat, whose tassels caught 
 
 The briars and thistle-heads. " Ah Sir," said he, 
 
 "Those last words puzzle you, but come round here." 
 
 Then on the foot slab of the monument 
 
 I read in letters sharpened with like care, 
 
Book I. 1 59 
 
 " The heart of Angeline de Kerghrist lies 
 Inside this tomb." " And his," the Cure" said, 
 " Is laid in hers, by special courtesy 
 Of the then Abbess of the Holy House 
 Wherein she died, a quarter league from this, 
 Among the oak woods yonder ; these have grown 
 High since their time, five hundred years ago, 
 And hid the Convent from the Monastery ; 
 But in those days you might have looked with ease 
 From window upon window, and have heard 
 Both Nun and Monk at Office at one time. 
 And each of these, for they were lovers, Sir, 
 Might take some comfort in the neighbourhood 
 That sight and sound made seem so very close, 
 Though still so hopelessly afar. Their tale 
 Is told in an old manuscript, I found 
 Among the archives of the Brotherhood : 
 'Tis writ by one who calls himself the friend 
 Of Beaumanoir, his comrade in the wars 
 And in the Monastery ; one who loved 
 God little, as I fear, and God's peace less. 
 As himself says : for ' I came here,' he writes, 
 ' After a life on saddle and under tent, 
 Battered and lanced by many a dint and thrust 
 
160 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 And wearied of all things save Edouard's love. 
 For this, I gave my helmet for a cowl, 
 And took a hair shirt in my breastplate's stead, 
 A girdle for a sword-belt, and with hands 
 That knew best how to couch a spear, or swing 
 A mace about folks' ears, I have sat hours, 
 Ay, weeks and years, within these sleepy walls, 
 Twirling a rosary, till the thread broke, 
 And left me for a change the beads to string, 
 And all this for a heartache not my own ! ' 
 Yet he did more than this, for he has left 
 Full many a sheet of manuscript, wherein 
 The story of his fights and Edouard's love 
 Is written, and among these, page on page 
 Of gibe and groan at his monastic life. 
 'Tis a quaint, godless reading, out of tune 
 With such a pious place ; and vain perchance, 
 And godless, were the pains that I have used 
 To write it all anew ; yet you might find 
 It serve to garnish one night's solitude. 
 I will go fetch it." 
 
 With the word, my priest, 
 Shoon, cassock, hat and tassels, sash and keys, 
 Shuffled away ; and ere I could walk round 
 
Book I. 1 6 1 
 
 The little graveyard, had come back again, 
 
 Bearing a thing like Jeremiah's roll. 
 
 Ah me, thought I, good prophet, little blame 
 
 To King Jehoiakim if thy poem lit 
 
 The royal hearthstones of the winter-house, 
 
 Were it a portent of so vast a length 
 
 As this ! Yet I made shift to thank the man, 
 
 Without a sigh. So he went off again ; 
 
 And after one more hour of loitering, 
 
 I to mine inn. Dull broke the afternoon, 
 
 With wind that swept the lake from end to end, 
 
 And whirling round the ruins, drave the stream 
 
 Up the dark sides of both the little quays. 
 
 A look into the Curb's manuscript 
 
 Seemed like a refuge from my window-panes, 
 
 That showed me but a pair of empty streets, 
 
 Mottled with rain : so, turning round, I drew 
 
 A settle to the fire-side, and untied 
 
 The strings of the thick packet. Daylight failed 
 
 Ere I worked through, with many a yawn and pause, 
 
 The uncouth ramblings of the soldier-monk, 
 
 Whose patches of impiety alone 
 
 Redeemed his dulness, as the flower and scent 
 
 Of furze bushes illuminate gray downs. 
 
1 62 Le Cosur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 'Twas proof of a deep tolerance and love 
 
 In our poor priest to have transcribed them all. 
 
 It seemed that Edouard was a Breton Knight, 
 A friend of the great Constable, and fought 
 In the long war that raged through Brittany, 
 Between De Montfort and the Count de Blois, 
 For that fair Duchy ; that his Mother came 
 Of some good house in Provence ; that his Father 
 Died in his youth, upon whose sudden loss — 
 The far too common story of those days — 
 An uncle dispossessed the wife and child, 
 And drove them into Provence, where they lived, 
 Protected by the widow's kin. The boy 
 Grew up in each intent a Troubadour, 
 Poet and soldier, with the vagrant tastes 
 Which marked that race of military bards ; 
 And in his wanderings he won the love 
 Of Angeline, the daughter and sole child 
 Of Raoul Kerghrist, Castellan of Rouen. 
 Once more the common tale ; he had no land, 
 So Raoul grimly stepped between their loves, 
 And set him wandering to gain a name, 
 And, should occasion favour him, to oust 
 His uncle from his father's barony ; 
 
Book I. 163 
 
 Or, failing that, to play his uncle's part, 
 
 And win broad lands from others. Thus he went : 
 
 And once again th' inevitable chance : 
 
 Come back with land and fame, he found his death 
 
 Had been the sole news that poor Angeline 
 
 Had heard of him ; that Raoul in good faith 
 
 Had deemed him dead, and so had giv'n his daughter 
 
 In marriage to some rough marauding lord, 
 
 Whose raids had much disturbed the Castellan, 
 
 And cost the Rouen burghers many a freight 
 
 Of rich rim-laded barges on their Seine, 
 
 Or mule trains in their forest passes. Him 
 
 Sir Raoul, working with his child's despair, 
 
 Was fain to tame into a son-in-law ; 
 
 So, after scantiest wooing, clinched at once 
 
 His robber's whim for her wan loveliness, 
 
 And they were wed. All this the Troubadour 
 
 Heard, riding at the head of a gay train, 
 
 Unhelmed, his lute and ribbons at his back, 
 
 Astride a smooth-limbed barb that he had trained, 
 
 Meet for his Lady, and with page and hound 
 
 Running below his bridle. At the news, 
 
 Sir Hubert, the biographer, who rode 
 
 By Edouard's side, having, so runs his roll, 
 
1 64 Le Cosur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Solaced his stomach with a round of oaths, 
 Snuffed battle in his friend's mishap, and gave, 
 Like Moloch, after a still worse checkmate, 
 His one and only counsel, instant war. 
 Not so the gentlier-sensed Provencal ; he, 
 Far nearer tears than rage, drew rein awhile ; 
 Then, heeding not the bursts of comfort plied 
 By faithful Hubert in between his oaths, 
 Rode silent into Rouen, fronted Raoul, 
 Saw through the man, but saw his tale was fair, 
 And had no heart to fasten feud on him 
 Whose blood was hers ; and so, for many days 
 Stayed in the town, whose every stone and turn, 
 And daily sights and sounds, but made to him 
 Fresh images and echoes of despair. 
 There would he wander forth from street to street, 
 At whiles, or pace beside the bending Seine, 
 Or in his solitary chamber, mocked 
 By his lute ribbons, of mere bitterness, 
 Would sing some song that he had sung to her, 
 Or made of her in march or bivouac, 
 Whilst he was wandering ; and e'en sometimes — 
 So strong the quaint Provencal humour in him — 
 He would string stanzas to old melodies, 
 
Book I . 165 
 
 Play on the name of Rouen, calling it 
 
 His city of Ruin. Twice or thrice in rage 
 
 He sent for Hubert, and with set teeth planned 
 
 A night surprise of the grim robber's den ; 
 
 But when in talk the two had reached the point 
 
 Of victory, when the vanquished husband lay 
 
 Yielded to ransom, or his leaguered hold 
 
 Demanded parle, Edouard would cry, "What then? 
 
 I cannot slay the man ; or if I could, 
 
 What could his wife be to his slayer, Hubert ? " 
 
 And so break off and weep ; and his rough friend 
 
 Would leave him then, too rude to comfort him, 
 
 Too honest for ill counsel. But at last, 
 
 News came that Angeline was left alone, 
 
 Her lord away upon some distant raid ; 
 
 And Edouard's heart leapt in him, and forthwith 
 
 He got to horse, and rode away alone, 
 
 And saw her, and came back after long hours 
 
 With one poor grain of comfort, and but one : 
 
 For she, heart-loyal even to her doom, 
 
 And little owing to the wedded fiend, 
 
 Whose devil's whim for her was past, had sworn 
 
 To call him to her should her need grow dire ; 
 
 But, having sworn, had bidden him begone, 
 
1 66 Le Cmur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 With such enforced impetuosity 
 
 Of anguish, such a storm of prayer on prayer, 
 
 As drave him from her speechless, no word said 
 
 Of all that he had pondered, with no proof 
 
 Of her love, save her agony, and of his 
 
 No show, save in his coming. Thus they met 
 
 And parted ; he through wood and over heath 
 
 Rode as one stunned, scarce heeding how he rode. 
 
 Wide, ere he reached it, swung the city gate, 
 
 And with unwonted promptness fell the bridge ; 
 
 For well the Warder, as all Rouen folk, 
 
 Knew of his wrongs ; and with some score or two 
 
 Of leather-jerkined fellows had consumed 
 
 Cup after cup in comment thereupon, 
 
 Till they and he were ready, on a hint, 
 
 With something more than pity ; as it was, 
 
 His opened gate and lowered drawbridge showed 
 
 Which way his heart leant. Him Sir Edouard passed 
 
 With scarce a salutation, and rode on, 
 
 His eyes fixed on his saddle-bow, until 
 
 His steed stopped at the well-known hostel door. 
 
 There stood Sir Hubert lolling, unto whom 
 
 He without preface : " I have seen her ; " then, 
 
 Clenching both hands upon his bridle, " Ah, 
 
Book I. 167 
 
 Thou Christ, I do beseech thee, grant to me 
 
 But this, that I may never see her more ! " 
 
 " And, by the Mother of God, it seemed to me 
 
 The drollest prayer that ever went to Heaven," 
 
 Writes Hubert, " But, however that may be, 
 
 He made it, and upon the making turned 
 
 Stairwards, and so went supperless to bed." 
 
 Rough Hubert then proceeds : "Of all things strange 
 
 The strangest seems to me that men should fight, 
 
 Save for the love of it ; for me, I own 
 
 My own taste lies in battle ; some men love 
 
 Wine, others women ; I love wine at whiles, 
 
 And, with submission to these holy walls, 
 
 Women upon occasion ; but for war 
 
 My stomach never flagged. Your toper too 
 
 Is choice of age and colour in his drink, 
 
 Must have his grapes grown, liquor pressed, flask 
 
 sealed, 
 On some anointed hill-side ; now for me, 
 I class wines by their flagons, and these last 
 Mainly by sizes ; howsoe'er, I grant 
 That 'twixt me and your dexterous wine-bibber 
 There is this much in common ; as he hath 
 His humour of the day for this or that, 
 
1 68 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 So I for some especial kind of fight. 
 
 How often upon waking, as I donned 
 
 My gear, have I debated with my soul, 
 
 'What shall we use, mace, lance, or sword, to-day?' 
 
 How the divided appetites would shift ! 
 
 For scarcely could I muse, ' How sweet it is 
 
 To find your lance-head well and truly fixed 
 
 Inside a fellow's hip, and, bearing on 
 
 With all your weight, to feel him topple and slide,' 
 
 Then straightway, like a jealous wench, the thought 
 
 Skipped in, as 'twere, of splitting morions, 
 
 And how one wrenched the mace-spikes from between 
 
 The bars of a bent vizor ; over which 
 
 Visions of sword-play — there is much to say 
 
 For thrust and buffet — would arise. I' th' event, 
 
 I mostly found mine Esquire had my lance, 
 
 And somehow, as the foemen came in sight, 
 
 My fingers twirled unasked the little mace : 
 
 Ah, ah, the little mace ! How many pates 
 
 He knew in those days, and how very few 
 
 Of all he knew ever remembered him ! 
 
 Five minutes' parle concluded all his friendships, 
 
 And much in the same fashion. Ah, God's love, 
 
 'Tis something in the dearth of these dead days, 
 
Book I. 169 
 
 Wherethrough I bask, and gape, and stretch myself, 
 
 Like a lame hound i' the kitchen, to run o'er 
 
 That last month's marching with the Constable, 
 
 After the Dinan leaguer; every day, 
 
 Planned or unplanned, gave us some choice set-to : 
 
 No matter where we rode, o'er Breton heath, 
 
 Or by fair Norman roadways, sure as fate, 
 
 Ere we began to yawn for idleness, 
 
 We fell into some pleasant ambuscade, 
 
 Or caught towards afternoon the welcome flash 
 
 Of English spear-heads perking overhill, 
 
 Travellers under convoy, it might be, 
 
 Or homeward foragers with plenishment 
 
 For one of Montfort's garrisons. For us, 
 
 Whose joy was there, what better life could be ? 
 
 But how good Edouard, who, at best of times, 
 
 Before he lost the Damsel, never owned 
 
 A stomach over keen for press and fray — 
 
 Not that he lacked in courage, ah me, no, 
 
 But 'twas not to his liking — how, I say, 
 
 He could keep saddle with us day by day, 
 
 Passed all our comprehensions ; he fought well, 
 
 Better than well ; there was a grace, a speed, 
 
 A smoothness in him, as he passed about, 
 
170 Le Cosur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Neat, lithe, and fiery as lightning, through 
 The spaces of a melee ; when he struck, 
 'Twas done with such light finish, that his man 
 Fell but with half the ordinary fuss ; 
 While Edouard would ride on, and take the next, 
 With such an easy sway of horse and arm, 
 And thus, with press of spur or turn of wrist, 
 Would swing and bend along from point to point 
 With so much pretty certainty, it seemed 
 As though he tuned his motions in his brain 
 To one of his own songs : and all this too 
 Without one touch of relish ! At the halt, 
 He would unhelm, and show an unlit face, 
 And take the talk about him of the day, 
 So wearily, and drink his cup of wine 
 With such a want of fellowship and cheer, 
 That had he not been what he was in fight, 
 Or what he was at camp-fire with his songs, 
 Albeit they were sad ones, he had made 
 More foes than e'er he slew, and ill wishers 
 Far worse than those he wounded ; then besides, 
 He never held to ransom in those days, 
 For all the need he had for gold was gone, 
 And this made enemies ; and many an one, 
 
Book I. 171 
 
 Who loved the chink of merks in a pouch, would 
 
 scowl. 
 As sourly as was prudent, when he saw 
 Our Edouard let some captive go scot free." 
 
 So with much more of march and countermarch, 
 Of raid, and foray, ride, and bivouac, 
 Rambles this rude biographer ; through all, 
 No word of Edouard's sorrow ; for to him 
 A broken heart was as a tongue unknown, 
 Uttered in vain about him ; he could ride 
 A stirrup's length from ceaseless misery, 
 Yet see it not, as a deaf man who sits 
 Working some quarried cave on the vexed shore, 
 Around the callous porches of whose ears, 
 The walls made murmurous by the moaning sea, 
 Ay, e'en the throbbing ocean tides themselves, 
 And restless ramp of the high-mettled waves, 
 Are mute as windless hillocks, or the womb 
 Of some long-sealed, forgotten sepulchre. 
 
 Alas, alas, for Beaumanoir, he turned 
 Back to the only beaten path that lay 
 For one of gentle blood in those wild days : 
 Turned with that hectic and unloving crave, 
 That passionate pursuit of toil, wherewith 
 
172 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 The wretched, striding o'er the wrecks of life, 
 
 Hack its hard hours to blunt the points of woe, 
 
 When they might die, and be at peace, and lose 
 
 All sense of loss or rapture. So he lived 
 
 The common life of taking other lives, 
 
 As wretched or less wretched than his own; 
 
 Rode, fought, or rested in the daily chance 
 
 Of war ; men called him the sour Troubadour, 
 
 From envy of his prowess, or perchance, 
 
 Of malice in the matter of his ransoms, 
 
 Or spleen because he kept himself apart ; 
 
 Such names make oft the vengeance of the mean, 
 
 When fear staysworse; yet nathless would they come, 
 
 At nightfall to the door of Guesclin's tent, 
 
 Or crowd about the camp-fires, when he sang 
 
 His songs of Provence, as he sometimes did, 
 
 When the fit took him, or the Constable 
 
 Would thrust a lute upon him. Thus he passed 
 
 Five lonely years, for Hubert's mastiff love 
 
 Broke not his solitude, and for the rest — 
 
 The throng of knights he loathed — of all the ills 
 
 That can be heaped on ill, the bitterest is 
 
 To have rude men for daily company. 
 
 His summers went in valorous listlessness 
 
Book I. 173 
 
 From leaguer unto leaguer, camp to camp, 
 And field to field, just as the long war swayed, 
 Hither and thither over bleeding France ; 
 His winters, in dejection unalloyed, 
 He passed with Hubert in his Breton hall, 
 Among the woods of Evrau upon Ranee. 
 Through all this time, no word of her he loved 
 If Hubert's knowledge, and his chronicle, 
 Be to be trusted for so much, had come 
 To fling a moment's flash, albeit of pain, 
 Athwart the dull deeps of his apathy. 
 The end made plain the wrongs of Angeline : 
 Her wedded life began with a few weeks 
 Of loathsome adulation and caress, 
 Until the heat of his detested love 
 Burnt out in her rude lord ; in scarce a month 
 The poor soul hailed, like a long-hunted hind 
 Catching the sight of some wide water-side, 
 The first blessed chills of that satiety, 
 Which rid her of him for awhile ; alas, 
 These were not all that waited her ; ere long 
 The robber turned to demon, 'neath the goad 
 Of his wife's gentleness, and came to hate, 
 With hate that fed upon the misery 
 
1 74 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Itself had made, the saintly victim placed 
 Too high for his low liking. As was meet, 
 His castle teemed with devils worse than he, 
 Both male and female ; as their master passed 
 Through the vile sequence of his ruffian moods, 
 E'en so did they with well-tuned licence turn 
 From budding insolence to full-blown scorn, 
 Mating his manner : hers was such a fate, 
 As some stray seraph's might be, caught by fiends, 
 And kept awhile, forgotten of its God, 
 To make the sport of Hell. But whatsoe'er 
 She bore, she bore it silently ; in her 
 Nobility and wretchedness had sealed 
 Their stately pact which dowereth souls divine 
 With such high sense of sovereignty o'er pain, 
 That from endurance seen, as from a throne, 
 The torturer doth seem a slave, who pays 
 Imperial honours to the tortured ; still, 
 Not less for this, to such the moment comes, 
 When baffled malice, with blood-blinded eyes, 
 Rushes on some last madness, but to feel 
 The furnace of its own misdoing, quick 
 With seven-fold fires no longer to be pent, 
 Hurl out upon the raging hands that pile them 
 
Book I. 175 
 
 An after-blast of flames and doom. And so, 
 To Angeline at length the moment came, 
 Supreme in outrage ; an eclipse of shame, 
 With tempest in its track, o'ercasting her 
 As with the shadow of hell ; a lightning stroke, 
 That charred the current in her patient veins, 
 Making her gasp for vengeance : so hath come 
 To some long-suffering people one late hour 
 Of sacred madness and sublime despair, 
 Sweeping off tyrants and the vermin crowds 
 That battened with them on mankind ; an hour 
 When all the spirits of good and evil, linked 
 In mazes of distempered frolic, rose 
 To dance a dance of death over the world. 
 It came that final and transfiguring wrong ; 
 But how, Sir Hubert saith not ; what it was, 
 Perhaps not even Edouard ever knew ; 
 It was enough for him that there arose, 
 From out that donjon keep of bitterness, 
 A cry of agony that reached his ears. 
 
 " I do remember me," writes Hubert, " well 
 How came the messenger from Angeline." 
 Ah me ! How when on his dull page I caught 
 The name of Angeline, a glory seemed 
 
1 76 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 To glow thereon ! So in some eerie glade 
 
 At nightfall doth the weary woodman hear 
 
 The prelude of an early nightingale 
 
 Relieve the terror-laden silences ; 
 
 So, too, the moody helmsman, who hath steered 
 
 By compass through th' unvaried night hours, catches 
 
 The sudden glint of moonlight over prow ; 
 
 Or some lone man the sight of her he loves, 
 
 Or unforeseen expression of her name, 
 
 To give him one full instant of delight 
 
 Along the void of his unfurnished days. 
 
 " We were at Josselin,'' the Mastiff writes, 
 " Planning a night surprise for Ploermel, 
 Where Montfort lay then ; planning did I say 
 'Twas planned ; the Josselin gates were in our guard, 
 Our sentries held the circuit of its walls, 
 Lest some young cit, for love of Montfort's gold, 
 Or likelier, from sheer itch of doing harm, 
 Might take a moonlight jaunt across the heath, 
 And spoil the sport ; Jean, Sieur de Beaumanoir, 
 Edouard, and I, young Rohan, and some more, 
 Were seated at our dinner, in full talk 
 Of the night's work, when of a sudden rose 
 A hubbub in the courtyard ; we got up 
 
Book I. 177 
 
 To see our fellows crowding round a lad 
 
 On horseback ; 'twas a comely strip enough, 
 
 And comelier still the war-horse, whose broad back 
 
 And spreading forehand stretched his boyish shanks. 
 
 Daintily clad he was, and had the mien 
 
 One sees in pages, one which cometh rather 
 
 Of gentle nurture than of gentle blood. 
 
 My master had a tongue, too, and could don 
 
 The easy swagger of a man who takes 
 
 The value of his errand as his own. 
 
 ' I seek Sir Edouard, cousin to the Sieur 
 
 De Beaumanoir ; where shall I find him, sirs ? ' 
 
 This with the air of one whose toes at least 
 
 Could reach the stirrup-irons, and who could climb 
 
 His steed's side without hoisting. There he sat, 
 
 As we looked forth, twirling his bridle end, 
 
 High-perched among the men-at-arms, who stood 
 
 With thumb in belt, or chin on partizan, 
 
 Eyeing the youngster up and down, with laugh 
 
 And jest from one to th' other that looked like 
 
 Rough weather for his sapling vanity. 
 
 ' How now, Sir Consequence ? ' quoth Edouard's 
 
 squire. 
 ' Art thou king's herald come demanding parle, 
 
 N 
 
1 78 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 That thou dost prate so loud ? Amongst us here 
 We talk up to our ounces, whereof thine 
 Are somewhat of the fewest ; art thou wont 
 To call for junket with so proud a crow 
 Under thy lady's window, my pet cockerel ? ' 
 Loud rose the general laugh ; but when I looked 
 On the bold boy now half abashed, and saw 
 The drawn flanks of his courser heave, and him 
 Mud-speckled from his brown cheeks to his hose, 
 Thought I, this youngster's bearing and his zeal, 
 Say something for his errand ; at the least 
 So long a ride makes him respectable ; 
 I'll get me down there ; ere I turned to go, 
 Whom should I see but Edouard in the court ! 
 Backward from push and buffet, left and right, 
 Stumbled groom, man-at-arms, and squire ; and left 
 A little space of audience in their midst ; 
 And laugh and jeer stayed, just as stay the talk 
 And twitter of the gallery, when the horns 
 Sound for the laissez-aller in the lists. 
 It chanced, however, that the castle cook 
 Saw not our knight ; he stood behind the lad, 
 Lifting, with wondrous care to keep his shins 
 Clear of the courser's heels, a ladle heaped 
 
Book I. 179 
 
 With meal, intent to play a scullion's joke, 
 And baste the youngster overhead : alas, 
 How often doth it fall out so in war ! 
 Just as you see a slip of your man's neck 
 Under his morion, and your arm swings out, 
 Down comes a mace upon your wristbone ; so, 
 Just as my grinning monarch of the clouts 
 Rose on toe-tip to tilt his ladle o'er, 
 A slap from Edouard's open hand, — thank God 
 He wore no> gauntlet, for the cook was fat — 
 Delivered, with a swing that frightened me, 
 Somewhere above the bowels, rolled him up, 
 As thoroughly as might be ; which being done 
 Sir Edouard took the courser by the bit, 
 Making the boy come off him, and they two 
 Went to his lodgings, while the gasping cook 
 Became the centre of the courtyard. I 
 Turned back to table, as was natural, 
 Having twelve hours of fasting and hard fight 
 Between me and a meal. Be it known that I 
 Am no believer in refined beliefs. 
 Edouard hath talked to me of sympathy, 
 And union of two souls, though far away, 
 And spite of certain interjected facts, 
 
180 Le Coeur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 That would, I must confess it, puzzle me, 
 
 And move my bile, were mine one of such souls. 
 
 Nathless, beyond denial, 'twas most strange 
 
 The leap he made from table when that boy 
 
 Rode through the courtyard, and the appetite 
 
 Wherewith he, little giv'n to roughnesses, 
 
 Distributed his buffets right and left, 
 
 And bore the lad away to hear his tale ; 
 
 A tale which, by the way, he ne'er retold, 
 
 Not even to me nor to the Sieur. He came 
 
 Back pale, and with much hurry in his face 
 
 And speech ; and said, ' Good cousin, I have heard 
 
 Somewhat just now that lets me from you all 
 
 To night ; you, Hubert, if you will, 
 
 Your following and mine, I'll take with me.' 
 
 Then, with a smile, for doubtless my face fell 
 
 With thinking of the loss of such a ride, 
 
 ' Old friend, we shall have work enough to do, 
 
 And of the prettiest.' The Beaumanoir 
 
 Said laughing, ' Cousin, be that as it may, 
 
 I trust thee, and can part with thee and him.' 
 
 So, ere the sun had sunk, we two set off 
 
 With six score horse upon the Rouen road." 
 
Book II. 181 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 far the Mastiff, as a hound might tell 
 
 V - J Who laid him on the scent, and how ; but why 
 Was scarce within his knowledge or his care. 
 It was enough for him that Edouard said, 
 " Hubert, the hour hath come, and he must die ; 
 
 1 must not slay him, as I showed to thee 
 At the beginning ; whatsoe'er the chance 
 Or method of our venture, he is thine ; 
 Remember." So towards Rouen they rode on ; 
 The Mastiff happy ; as the dawn to birds, 
 
 The prospect of hard fighting was to him ; 
 And as for Edouard, Hubert only knew 
 The surface change his hope had clad him in. 
 " We made a plump of some six score," he writes, 
 " Beside myself, and Edouard, and the Boy. 
 All night we rode ; and hour by hour we talked 
 Of this and that, digesting our emprize. 
 
1 82 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Not that he needed much debate ; he seemed 
 
 To know Red Robert's castle stone by stone, 
 
 And counted off his followers man by man. 
 
 And ever and anon he would call up 
 
 First one and then another of our band, 
 
 Whom he knew worth the trust, and give him charge 
 
 Of such and such a point ; and doing so, 
 
 To one would tell the nature of the ground, 
 
 Low patches in the wall for escalade, 
 
 And angles that gave foothold ; to another 
 
 How faced some postern, how it had no locks, 
 
 And only held by cross-bars which would turn, 
 
 If such and such a pin were drawn. In sooth, 
 
 Had I not known him, I had said, ' Ho, ho, 
 
 Fair Edouard, thy five years have been, poor man, 
 
 Not altogether pastimeless ; ah well ; • 
 
 The night was fashioned to redress the day ! 
 
 How many moons that lit Red Robert's casque, 
 
 As he passed out upon some thievish ride, 
 
 Have glimmered on his Lady's arm, that hung 
 
 Down from her casement, while she watched for thee ? ' 
 
 But well I knew they were not thus ; and yet, 
 
 Perchance because I rode on silently, 
 
 A length or two in front, marvelling much, 
 
Book II. 183 
 
 And withal saddened somewhat, and self-wroth 
 
 To think, poor patient heart, how all those years 
 
 I, living by his side, had let him plan, 
 
 Ponder, and perfect that emprize alone ; 
 
 Or even, perchance, not knowing how I knew 
 
 Him and fair Angeline — for I am wont 
 
 To laugh at large at this or that, until 
 
 The best of me lacks credit — he rode up, 
 
 And laying out a hand on one of mine, 
 
 ' Hubert,' said he, ' I would that thou shouldst know 
 
 How I have learned this Moulineaux by heart. 
 
 Some half score times, or more, I have been there, 
 
 Habited as a Troubadour, and begged 
 
 A supper and a lodging ; I have sat, 
 
 My Hubert, I have sat in the man's hall, 
 
 Or rather in the human devil's hell, 
 
 And sung my songs of Provence at his will 
 
 To him and all his fiends, who knew me not ; 
 
 And eaten his own bread with him, whereof 
 
 I do repent somewhat, but 'twas at most 
 
 The measure of my treason, e'en to him 
 
 Who bought my darling, bought her ! Thus thouseest 
 
 I got to know his den inside and out. 
 
 Not otherwise, I swear to thee.' Then I, 
 
1 84 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 ' Nay, spare me that ; I never doubted thee, 
 
 Still less the spotless Lady, who shall yet 
 
 Be thine, unless this little mace hath lost 
 
 Some weight and temper.' Thus did we hold on 
 
 Until the dawn ; no band of night-riders 
 
 Ever was merrier ; Edouard himself, 
 
 Now spurring on in front, now on the flanks, 
 
 Now reining back upon the rearguard, rode 
 
 With this one and with that ; and he who was 
 
 So silent heretofore on march, that they 
 
 Who knew not of his sorrow called him sour, 
 
 Was full of light talk and apt questioning 
 
 Of arms, horse, children, wife, or wench, to each ; 
 
 Till the whole troop was filled from van to rear 
 
 With joyous marvel, and his spirit caught 
 
 All in the toils of its own gladsomeness. 
 
 In one long week we crossed broad Normandy, 
 From Montfort to the Seine ; skirted by Rennes, 
 Fougeres, and Mortain, Tinchebrai, and Falaise, 
 Bernay, and Bourgtheroulde. By night we rode 
 But halted much by day, camping concealed 
 In woods and copsy places, chosen coigns 
 Of heath, or by some willow-hidden ford, 
 For fear of English riders ; ne'er till then 
 
Book II. 185 
 
 Had any troop with Edouard in it turned 
 So often out of harm's way ; yet, for all 
 There was no fighting, 'twas not a dull march ; 
 For pleasant beyond telling 'twas to me 
 To catch in our good Edouard, hour by hour, 
 Fresh touches of the lightsome Troubadour 
 He was, up to that cursed afternoon, 
 When old Sir Raoul's message made us halt 
 Midway 'twixt Pont de l'Arche and Rouen town. 
 For he would suddenly break on ahead, 
 Putting the whole band to a hand-gallop, 
 And, as his rowelled charger lunged and sprang, 
 Sitting with low hands on the withers, he 
 Would troll out snatches from good hawking-songs 
 I had not heard for five years gone or more : 
 One more than all, which half the men-at-arms 
 Knew, and came bellowing on behind us, making 
 A gabble of tunes and measures, like a pack 
 Of faulting hounds, that catch a leader's note, 
 And fling their tongues at random after him. 
 
1 86 Le Cosur de Beattmanoir. 
 
 " ' La Belle Chasseresse. 
 " ' By meadow, and down, and hollow, 
 
 Lake, marish, and river sides, 
 We follow, follow, follow, 
 
 Wherever my Lady rides. 
 
 " ' A heron is up from the reeds, 
 
 Away goes her falcon true, 
 We catch at the reins of our steeds, 
 
 For away goes my Lady too. 
 
 " ' With a cry to the hawk, and the knight 
 Who spurs at her saddle-bow, 
 
 And a touch on her courser light, 
 
 Who well doth her light touch know ; 
 
 " ' He knoweth the signal well, 
 And the rings of his silver bit, 
 
 Keep tune to his frontlet bell, 
 As he flingeth and champeth it ; 
 
 " ' And the spring of his lithe loin is lither, 
 And fleeter his fleet foot skims, 
 
 As he feels upon flank and wither 
 The press of her dainty limbs, 
 
Book II. 187 
 
 " ' Sour Robin may swear and stumble, 
 Fat Willie may flounder and fall, 
 
 We laugh at the curse and the tumble, 
 And turn to my Lady's call. 
 
 " 'And after her, knight and rider 
 
 Jostle, and strive, and cry, 
 Till dead on the heather beside her 
 
 Falcon and quarry lie. 
 
 " ' So with hie-away, hark, and halloa, 
 No matter what chance betides, 
 
 We follow, follow, follow, 
 As long as my Lady rides.' 
 
 " At length one morning, just ere cock-crowing, 
 We rode into the forest of La Londe, 
 La Londe, that with the woods of Rouvray clothes 
 A hilly spur of country towards the north, 
 From Bourgtheroulde to Rouen, well-nigh closed 
 Within a great loop of the winding Seine. 
 The season was mid autumn ; we drew rein 
 In a long grassy glade through which ruts ran, 
 Scored by the charrettes of the wood-farmers, 
 
1 88 Le Cosur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Who come in spring for oak bark, and again 
 In autumn for the seasoned trunks, that lay 
 In plenty even then. Our halt had been 
 Where the main woods fall back on either side, 
 As river shores that have a lake-like trend ; 
 And only pollard hornbeam and low thorns 
 Studded the green like islands. There we camped, 
 Posted our scouts to stop chance country folk, 
 Brake fast, and so to sleep ; I woke at noon, 
 To find the camp alive with fresh-caught clowns, 
 Whom we were bound to clap a claw upon, 
 Lest news of us should get to Moulineaux, 
 Which lay within a league ; there they all sat, 
 Rough-polled, round-eyed, like bush-faced owls ; 
 
 in rows, 
 Each with his feet bound safely to the log 
 He sat upon ; their charrettes stood around 
 Unladen ; and their hobbled horses strayed 
 In groups along the glade, philosophers 
 Beyond their masters, for they set themselves 
 Without ado to their forced holiday, 
 And bared their foreteeth to the napless turf, 
 Much to my admiration. 
 
 We dined well, 
 
Book II. 189 
 
 For few men better than our Edouard knew 
 
 The merit of full stomachs before fight ; 
 
 And for this end we stayed by Bourgtheroulde, 
 
 To buy a barique of good wine, and meats, 
 
 And wheaten bread in plenty. After food 
 
 Our men, in whom the Malvoisie had worked, 
 
 Made very merry with their prisoners, 
 
 As boys with bulrush plumes will tickle owls, 
 
 Or brush the eyes of a gorged hawk with feathers. 
 
 Poor clowns, how they sat blinking ; as much eased 
 
 As overfed ; longing to crown with sleep 
 
 The perfect dinner that had cast out fear. 
 
 Alas, no broad mouth quivered to a yawn, 
 
 But a well-planted clod of ready turf 
 
 Filled it as soon as opened ; not a chin 
 
 Sank, but a dagger-point or buckle pricked 
 
 The flat nose overhanging it ; at last 
 
 Edouard, who never loved camp jesting, bade 
 
 A squire to fetch his lute, and thereto sang 
 
 Song after song, and drew the men away ; 
 
 And even roused the drowsy clowns so far, 
 
 That while a final jug of Malvoisie 
 
 Went round, a growing rumour from them ran, 
 
 That Jacques, the sabot-cutter, sang a song. 
 
190 Le Cozier de Beawnanoir. 
 
 So Edouard straightway had his feet cut loose, 
 
 And made them roll a log into the midst, 
 
 And set him on it, 'mid a general shout 
 
 Of ' To it, Jacques ! Thy song, Jacques ; sing it, 
 
 man ! ' 
 Then Jacques, with one last sup of Malvoisie, 
 Took heart, and wiping his huge lips and chin, 
 And lifting up his snub nose unto heaven, 
 And screwing down his eyebrows on his cheek, 
 Sent forth an undulating squall, whereto, 
 Unlike our band, his fellows had perchance 
 Grown callous or affectioned with much use ; 
 For each one bowed, or beat a foot, or swung 
 A shaggy head, or crooked fingers tapped, 
 In uncouth concert with each villainous stave, 
 From us unto the bard, and him to us, 
 Looking approval ; but, I wot, our mien 
 Had not been of the gravest through it all, 
 But that good Edouard, with his lute on knee, 
 And kindly eyes that mocked not, and deft hands 
 Catching a chord that suited now and then, 
 Made such a show of liking as warned back 
 Our laughter ; nay, no sooner did the bard 
 Reopen his stitched eyelids, and reduce 
 
Book II 191 
 
 The elevation of his nostrils, than 
 
 He bade him, with some easy words of praise, 
 
 To sing the whole once more ; which being done, 
 
 Much to the joy of the bewildered clowns, 
 
 And marvel of the sabot-cutter, thus 
 
 He sang himself ; 'twas the man's song and tune 
 
 Thrown back to him re-shapen, like rough ore 
 
 Given to the finder coined. 
 
 " Le Sabotier de la Londe. 
 
 " ' My father was a knight of worth 
 In all save that which gave me birth, 
 But, quit of his high fatherhood, 
 I live a peasant of this wood : 
 Moi, je ne suis qu'un Sabotier ! 
 
 " ' Here from the daylight until noon, 
 Chopping the beechwood into shoon, 
 I work and sing, then down sit I 
 Where the chips I make are heaped up dry ; 
 Moi, je ne suis qu'un Sabotier ! 
 
 " ' I dip my can in the water-mill, 
 Of good galette I eat my fill, 
 
192 Le Ccetir de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Then where the rank wood-plants are deep, 
 I stretch me out for a noonday sleep ; 
 Moi, je ne suis qu'un Sabotier ! 
 
 " ' The world is hot, but its woods are cool ; 
 Who leaves the woods is an arrant fool ; 
 Life's beaten road, with its dust and sun, 
 Is a long day's work that is never done ; 
 Moi, je ne suis qu'un Sabotier ! 
 
 " ' Where men are many all ills are brewed ; 
 We are but few in this quiet wood ; 
 Too few for strife, or spite, or woe ; 
 Peste ! Here comes Jeanne with that fool Junot ! 
 Moi, je ne suis qu'un Sabotier ! ' 
 
 " So sang he to their great bewilderment, 
 And little less to ours, wont as we were 
 To hear him in like fashion ; but that day 
 Made light of all our memories ; he seemed 
 Possessed by something that was thrice himself, 
 Divine, lit through by splendid happiness, 
 Aflame with power. 
 
 The laughter and the songs 
 
Book II 193 
 
 Ceased with his own ; th' October afternoon 
 Began to lose its brightness, and the glade 
 Steamed like a sweated horse ; ' Now men,' cried he, 
 ' The skies are clear ; on such a night as this 
 E'en a dark iron morion or breast-piece 
 Hath somewhat of an awkward flash on it, 
 For work like ours ; get you to yonder ponds, 
 And even to your pike-heads smudge your gear ; 
 Stand neither for the soiling nor for rust, 
 To-morrow I'll find scourers.' So they went, 
 With gibe and scuffle, and were back again 
 In half an hour, browner than marish frogs 
 From cap to stirrup-iron. As they formed 
 Three deep across the green, Edouard rode up 
 Bareheaded to the front of them, and resting 
 His helmet on his saddle-pommel, said : 
 ' Good fellows all, it pleases me to think 
 That some of you at least have ridden this ride, 
 As ye have ridden it, for love of m ; 
 And I would thank you for it, and in turn 
 Would trust, as unto friends who feel for me, 
 What after all some of you know perchance, 
 How comes it that this thief of Moulineaux 
 
 Should be mine enemy. Five years ago 
 
 o 
 
1 94 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 And then he paused, as loath to say it out ; 
 
 And ere he could begin again, forth spurred, 
 
 A pace or two, Robin of Concarneau ; 
 
 A gloomy patch was Robin in the troop, 
 
 Sullen and cross withal to man and beast ; 
 
 But a good man-at-arms, and had command 
 
 Of twenty men under my lieutenant. 
 
 He in a voice less rough than was its wont, 
 
 But louder and more eager, cried, ' What need 
 
 To tell us ? We all know, and have all sworn 
 
 To win thee forth the Lady, and to burn 
 
 That Devil's hold, and slay him. Ay, mates, ay? ' 
 
 " So spake grim Robin, turning to the troop 
 With his last words ; they one and all set up 
 A cheer, with rattling of their partizans 
 And bucklers ; Edouard for one moment hid 
 His forehead in his helmet plumes, and then 
 Looked up, and reined his horse round, waved his 
 
 hand, 
 And striving with his voice, gave word to march ; 
 And off we set. I rode by my friend's side ; 
 But in a little while he lingered back, 
 Till Robin came abreast us, and I saw 
 The trooper's hand in his ; and Robin said, 
 
Book II. 195 
 
 ' Sir Knight, say nought to me ; three days ago 
 
 You laughed at the sour Robin in your song ; 
 
 Du Guesclin's knights at times have called you sour; 
 
 Can you not guess now wherefore I am so ? 
 
 Nor why I help you with such mighty will 
 
 To slay this devil — as I think we shall — 
 
 Or die in the failure ? ' Edouard looking on him, 
 
 With brimful eyes, said, ' Robin I sha'n't sing 
 
 That song again.' But he, ' Nay, sing it, Sir ; 
 
 'Twill please me you should sing it ; I shall catch 
 
 A touch of pity in the way you sing 
 
 That shall be worth the name to me.' With that 
 
 The knight rode on, but I, as I looked back, 
 
 Saw that poor Rob was weeping. 
 
 The moon rose 
 High, ere we reached the edges of the wood, 
 And halting on a rise in the green road, 
 Caught our first outlook upon open ground, 
 And saw our work before us. There it stood, 
 Two bowshots each way from the nearest trees, 
 Perched on a cluster of rough knolls, that rose, 
 Rolling one over other up from Seine. 
 
 " ' Not an ill-chosen nest, my carrion crow ! ' 
 Thought I; 'a river in your front that takes 
 
1 96 Le C&ur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Some crossing, and about you woods, whose paths 
 
 Are just so many miles of ambuscade. 
 
 Not an ill-chosen nest, my bird of night ! 
 
 Newly built too ! ' However, I soon saw 
 
 The spot that made its weakness. 'Twas a court, 
 
 Oblong, with round towers at the angles, keep, 
 
 Gatework and barbican; the curtain ran 
 
 From knoll to knoll ; where the ground sank, 'twas 
 
 high, 
 But on the rises low, and at one point, 
 Close to the western tower wheretoward we looked, 
 The turf heaved up so suddenly, it seemed 
 As if the wall were nought but parapet. 
 And truly 'twas nigh that ; the Thief had thought 
 By scarping there to save his masonry ; 
 Nathless the builder had not dared to pick 
 Too close to his foundations, so had left 
 Just enough level soil at his wall's foot 
 To let a man creep round above the scarp, 
 And plant a ladder ; not that this had been 
 Too simple, had the flanking tower been kept 
 Well watched and manned; but as our Edouard knew 
 From the page boy — who had passed to and fro 
 Twice since we started out from Bourgtheroulde— 
 
Book II. 197 
 
 That night there was high roystering within, 
 For some good robber's reason, and the tower 
 Was left but to one warder, whom the lad 
 Was pledged to rid us of, taking the watch 
 Himself from dusk to midnight. Well ; 
 We left our horses tethered, under care 
 Of twenty men for rearguard, while the rest 
 Parted, and took four stations in the wood ; 
 One opposite each postern, and a fourth 
 Facing the western tower. 
 
 Edouard went on, 
 In character of wandering Troubadour, 
 On horseback with his squire ; half armed, in hood 
 And hosen, and a leathern doublet caped 
 With a short hauberk reaching to his loins. 
 A light mace and long dagger in his belt 
 Were his sole weapons, and th' eternal lute 
 Hung in its ribbons at his back ; his sword, 
 Helmet, and lance, with all his other gear, 
 Piled on a sumpter, followed with the squire. 
 
 " We watched him till he turned behind a knoll 
 That hid the road up to the barbican ; 
 Then in the stillness of the night we heard 
 The warder's challenge, his reply, the clank 
 
198 Le Caeur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Of the loose drawbridge as its chains ran out, 
 The creak and rattle of the portcullis, 
 The dull thud of his horse across the planks, 
 And all was still ; the bold man, life in hand, 
 Had ridden in to find his enemy. 
 With what a pleasant ache my heart did yearn 
 To see so good a play so well begun ! 
 I took the little mace, and for sheer joy 
 Split down the fork of an oak sapling. Ah, 
 My little mace ! I look, and see thee now 
 Hanging above my pallet on the wall ; 
 To fail me on that night, that night of all ! 
 And yet, not thou, 'twas I ; I never could 
 Strike, if a man looked dead ; I should have laid 
 The felon's brains out on his own floor-planks, 
 And so made surer. Well ; we saw at length 
 The page boy's signal from the western tower, 
 And I, and twenty with me, gat us out, 
 And stealing under cover of the knolls, 
 That favoured us, came underneath the scarp, 
 And round it, and then up along the ledge, 
 And over the low curtain ; it so chanced 
 There were no warders either east or north, 
 For martial order in that lawless hold 
 
Book II 1 99 
 
 Was of the slackest, and the guard had slipped 
 To get an extra stoup in the great hall, 
 And listen to the Troubadour : Ned's songs 
 Had gained a fame among Red Robert's band 
 That stood us in good stead. In little time 
 We had the posterns open, and our men 
 Safe in the base court ; on we pressed at once, 
 I, Robin, and the twenty, on tiptoe, 
 Led by the Boy, straight for the gateway tower ; 
 For there sat thirty of their men-at-arms 
 At supper in the guard-room ; so I turned 
 The key on them, and drew the bars across 
 The doorway ; also all along our way 
 Did I drop men behind us, two and two, 
 To strangle any wench or serving-man 
 Who chanced to need it, and to keep our rear 
 Clear to the court. Thus to the Hall we came, 
 Some twelve of us at last, sent in the Boy, 
 Whose coming was the signal of our own 
 To Edouard, and then waited at the doors. 
 As the page entered, rough Red Robert's voice 
 Was shouting for more music, and his Guest, 
 For so it had been settled, without word, 
 Struck up the prelude to our hawking song, 
 
200 Le Cosur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 ' The Pretty Huntress ; ' line by line it swung, 
 
 As easy as a hand-gallop, until 
 
 He came upon the verse that opens thus, 
 
 ' Sour Robin may swear and stumble ' 
 And then we thought his voice grew tremulous 
 Suddenly, like a man's who sees somewhat 
 That disconcerts him, and the first quick plunge 
 Of fear shot through me of some accident ; 
 When close beside mine ear I heard a voice ; 
 It was sour Robin humming ; I turned round, 
 And saw his face barred by a shaft of light 
 That smote upon it through the ill-framed door : 
 He seemed transformed with pleasure, as he craned 
 Over my shoulder towards the hinge crevice 
 Whence the light came. Small time was there to 
 
 crane ; 
 For Edouard, rising, with his lute on knee, 
 And voice that rose, and trembled as it rose, 
 Sang: 
 
 " ' Well had he loved my Lady, 
 
 That knight at her saddle-bow, 
 Had seen of her need, and was ready, 
 And that did my Lady know ; 
 
Book II. 20 1 
 
 " ' And he it is now who singeth 
 This song in her tyrant's hall ; 
 See, see, what his last note bringeth ! 
 Ho, glaives to my Lady's call ! ' 
 
 " Then, with the battle-cry of Beaumanoir, 
 In rushed the twelve ; I only caught a sight 
 Of Edouard, with his arm round Angeline, 
 Fighting his way out to the door ; for me, 
 Amid the din of tumbling benches, screams 
 From frighted women, of a class to fear 
 Death rather than dishonour, fighting men 
 Yelling aloud for arms, scared servitors 
 Dropping their loads, I leaped, and thrust, and strode, 
 And stumbled till I reached my man : he stood 
 Glaring at Edouard, now half down the hall 
 With his fair prize of war ; he had plucked down 
 A huge two-handed weapon from the wall 
 Behind him, and was just in act to spring 
 Over the dais table in pursuit, 
 When I confronted him ; blood-hot with rage 
 He turned on me ; I was well clad in proof, 
 And he in a cloth doublet and trunk hose, 
 With not so much as a silk bonnet on ; 
 
202 Le Coeur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 I never cared to fight at too great odds, 
 
 So said full fairly, ' For the love of God, 
 
 Take thee some head-piece, man ! This bee of mine,' 
 
 Giving the little mace a twirl, ' were loath 
 
 To buzz about bare temples ; call thy squire j 
 
 I'll give thee time.' But ere my words were out 
 
 The violent fool made at me, with a blow 
 
 Of such intention, it swept off my qualms, 
 
 As a wind sweeps dead leaves from a grass hill. 
 
 And so to work we went : he stood entrenched 
 
 Behind the table, and his sword was long, 
 
 While I had only shield and mace ; too much 
 
 Hung on the bout to throw a chance away ; 
 
 So catching his next stroke with a high shield, 
 
 I leaped upon the table, and thus took 
 
 His vantage, and being once within his guard, 
 
 Lost little time ; my first blow crushed the bones 
 
 Of his left hand against his cheek ; my next 
 
 Came cleanly on his temple ; down he sank 
 
 Without a quiver, and the thing was done. 
 
 And just in time, for, as he dropped, I heard 
 
 A rush behind me, and good Robin's voice 
 
 Shouting to turn : I swung round, and fell back 
 
 Against the wainscot, half blind and half stunned : 
 
Book II. 203 
 
 It was a valorous wench, and stout withal, 
 Had swung a broken bench with both her hands 
 * Round on my basinet ; I staggered down, 
 Feeling, as I imagine barnfowls feel, 
 When suddenly some cook's stick catches them 
 An indecisive tap across the wattle. 
 However, I made shift to get me up 
 By Robin's help, though sorely dazed ; when, lo, 
 My girl at sight of Robin, shrieks his name, 
 And tumbles in a swoon ; while he, poor man, 
 Gives a great groan, and lets me down again, 
 And falls to loosening of her bodice pins. 
 All this I was too sick to marvel at, 
 And scarce could bear the motion in my throat 
 Enough to mutter, ' Look behind thee, Rob ! ' 
 When three set on him all at once. Alas, 
 Good fighter as he was, he fought but ill, 
 And seemed half looking at the fainted girl, 
 And only half at the three blades that danced 
 About his morion and corselet ; once 
 I tried to help him, but that cursed stool 
 Had stopped my table jumping for some while. 
 It made me gnash my teeth to see one knave, 
 While our poor man, whose morion had slipped, 
 
204 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Was more than busy with the other two, 
 
 Shorten his sword, and stick him in the throat, 
 
 Like a store hog ; down he fell prone, good Robin, 
 
 And lay for once — ay, by God's love, perchance 
 
 Knew it a little while before he died — 
 
 Bosom to bosom with the girl he loved, 
 
 While all his life-blood welled out over her. 
 
 If one must live in misery for love, 
 
 I take it Rob's was a good death to die. 
 
 But, be that as might be, I had small space 
 
 To think on it, for up came mine esquire 
 
 To say the castle folk were rallying ; 
 
 And that our fellows had had much ado, 
 
 Being outnumbered, now that Beaumanoir 
 
 Had gone off with some fifty, to defend 
 
 Th' approaches to the gateway tower, whereof 
 
 The guard we trapped would soon break down the 
 
 door ; 
 Which done, 'twas overlikely that we all 
 Should follow Robin and Red Moulineaux. 
 I could scarce walk, and every step I took 
 Struck like a wedge driven upward to my brain. 
 Since then I've never seen a beech-log split, 
 But I have thought of that false vigorous quean 
 
Book II. 205 
 
 And her most cursed settle. With much pain, 
 
 I made my way across the open ground, 
 
 And came to Beaumanoir and Angeline, 
 
 Safe in the wood. We had but two men killed, 
 
 And half a dozen wounded, more or less, 
 
 Not one so sorely that he might not ride, 
 
 Saving for me ; our horses all stood loose 
 
 And ready ; with a groan of misery, 
 
 I let myself be thrust up on to mine, 
 
 And slipped down shock into the saddle seat, 
 
 As helpless as a falling portcullis j 
 
 While such a quivering twang of agony 
 
 Rang up my backbone, that I yelled aloud. 
 
 ' Oh, laugh once more, and, by the splendour of God, 
 
 I'll flay thee ! ' cried I to a tittering squire. 
 
 Too plain 'twas that I could not ride that night, 
 
 Beyond a foot's pace ; so they left me there 
 
 With mine own folk, some score of men-at-arms, 
 
 Beside my squires, and all the rest at trot, 
 
 With many kindly farewells, mixed with thanks, 
 
 From Edouard and fair Angeline — all which 
 
 I took but with sour grace, so sore was I — 
 
 Pushed on for Bourgtheroulde. 
 
 "Od's will,' thought I, 
 
206 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir 
 
 As they rode off, 'I'd liefer that my heart 
 Were broken ten times than my back wrung once ! ' 
 But help was none ; I watched them up the glade, 
 Saw the moon flash on their last morion, 
 Leaned over from my horse into men's arms, 
 Like some sick girl, and, propped against a tree, 
 Sat aching, while my fellows made for me, 
 A hand litter of wattled ash branches, 
 Strewn, not amiss, with fir sprigs and heaped fern ; 
 This, with my saddle strapped up at one end, 
 To make a pillow, served me passing well ; 
 And so, my face turned helpless to the stars, 
 Working by turns, but stumbling overmuch, 
 They bore me safely into Bourgtheroulde. 
 There lay I for some fifteen days or more, 
 Till I could ride again, and then went on 
 By Falaise and Fouge"res to Josselin." 
 
Book III. 207 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 i J ERE had I gladly stayed ; I seemed to see 
 The two ride off into those misty woods, 
 As actors in life's tragedy set free, 
 Who having played a bitter play, thus made 
 Their exit into happiness ; the while 
 The moon, the lover's planet, and the earth, 
 Associate for their welcome, had let fall 
 A lustrous veil to screen their onward path 
 From the past rack and fever. But, alas, 
 There is a power within us that impels 
 Our spirits to the close of all things sad ; 
 In spite of our own hearts that cry to us, 
 Like some poor kneeling woman, with clenched hands, 
 Flung in the way of a rash man, who sees 
 The ruin that he will not see. Besides, 
 As I sat turning over page on page, 
 I came across fresh songs of Beaumanoir, 
 
208 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 And needs must know th' occasion of them ; thus 
 I showed myself the miserable end. 
 
 Through ten sweet days they rode towards Brittany, 
 From point to point, back on his outward road ; 
 And as his hope had grown in coming, grew 
 In both of them, through their fulfilled return, 
 A sweet sense of perfection in relief; 
 A solemn peace, a gentle ecstasy 
 Of joy, that was a worship of joy's self; 
 And made his journey seem a sacred thing, 
 And every bivouac and halting place, 
 Marked by its camp-refuse and perished fires, 
 The stages of some holy way, refound 
 After a pilgrimage. Near Josselin 
 There stood a convent of the Ursulines, 
 Whereof his cousin by the father's side, 
 Constance de Beaumanoir, was Prioress. 
 There rested Angeline, an honoured guest, 
 With the good Nun, who knew her story well, 
 And judged its issue with all tenderness, 
 And justice, and with something of that breadth 
 Of charity, whereof men love to boast, 
 More than they love to use it. In her arms 
 Folded, and happy, Angeline was left, 
 
Book III. 209 
 
 By the low doorway in the convent wall ; 
 And Edouard set his eyes on her no more, 
 Until he sought her on her marriage-morn. 
 
 Their marriage-morn, alas, their marriage-morn ! 
 It broke on them with gaiety and sun, 
 All brilliance, and all beauty, and all joy : 
 A jewelled cradle for a life still-born ; 
 A flash, a phantom of eluding light, 
 Presaging bliss, preluding misery ; 
 Death's mocking Angel, with a mask of life 
 And robe of promise wrapped about the bones ; 
 A hideous cheat of nature and of fate, 
 At which all Hell might laugh for cruelty ! 
 They came before the altar, paid their vows 
 By agony and delay thrice sanctified ; 
 The priest had blessed them, and the man and wife 
 Went, followed by Heaven's incense, down the Nave. 
 And at God's very doors the Devil stood 
 To welcome them, her husband, in his flesh, 
 Evil and hale, full armed, his vizor up, 
 A laugh of bate spreading his branded cheeks, 
 Like Satan grinning through the bars of Hell 
 On saints who flounder on their way towards 
 Heaven. 
 
 p 
 
2 1 o Le Cceur de Beawmanoir. 
 
 " And wouldst thou wed again so soon, sweet dame ? 
 
 So soon, even supposing I were dead ? 
 
 Thy friend's arm was less strong than thy desires, 
 
 My pretty flitter ! Hadst thou cared to wait 
 
 That evening when I seemed so dead, to wait, 
 
 And bid thy paramour make some one throw 
 
 A little earth on me for charity — 
 
 Any scant grave had made death real enough — 
 
 Nor left me stark and bloody in my hall, 
 
 Our hall, sweet wife, whereto we go, you know, 
 
 For a poor serving wench to find, and tend, 
 
 And bring to life, I had not now been here, 
 
 To thwart thee, and thy mincing playmate there ; 
 
 Adulteress ! " Then Edouard, at that word, 
 
 Sprang at him from her side, and flung him back 
 
 Among the peasants, crying loud for rage 
 
 And anguish, " No, by God, thou recreant, 
 
 Not that ! By that one word thou hast earned Hell, 
 
 And thou shalt have it ! Most accursed man, 
 
 I said I would not slay thee, but my hope, 
 
 The hope in which I spared thee, is dead now ; 
 
 And I am free, ay, freed by my despair, 
 
 And may avenge her as I will. My arms ! 
 
 Bear her off, Hubert, to the Ursulines. 
 
Book III. 2 I I 
 
 Farewell, farewell, my love, my love, for ever. 
 Ah see, she faints ! " And, as he spoke, she fell 
 Heavily on his breast ; he caught her up, 
 And tried to kiss her brows ; but her fair head 
 Fell backward from his lips. Then, at that sight, 
 Her husband, gnashing his fierce teeth, sprang forth, 
 And, plucking out a dagger as he sprang, 
 Stabbed at her ; but her lover, watching him, 
 Swung round, and dropped her into Hubert's arms ; 
 And with his right hand clutched the murderer's wrist, 
 And, planting a firm foot behind his heel, 
 Flung him ; down fell he with some varlet's curse 
 Among the cowering crowd, but ere he rose 
 A dozen knees and hands had got him fast, 
 And he lay foiled and panting. " Harm him not," 
 Said Beaumanoir, " but keep him where he lies, 
 Till my arms come ; give him no writhing room ; 
 He who would stab a woman in a swoon, 
 Were she not one whom may God pardon me 
 For likening to His Angels, is no knight 
 Whom knights may trust to wait till they be armed." 
 So lay he in the roadway firmly bound, 
 Till Edouard stood before him clad in steel, 
 His vizor down, his shield upon his arm, 
 
2 1 2 Le Cosur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 And his point lowered; and bade them get from him, 
 And let him rise. Up came he to his doom, 
 Fierce, raving, while his furious breath in gasps 
 Steamed through his vizor ; but the Troubadour, 
 Cruelly calm, fatally passionless, 
 Flung his mad onslaught off, from left to right. 
 With blade and buckler, till the moment came, 
 When the wild blood gushed from the robber's throat, 
 While brand and shield dropped down, on either side, 
 From his relaxing hands ; and groaning loud, 
 And with one quivering gasp at a last curse, 
 Robert of Moulineaux crashed over, dead. 
 
 So passed from them their little gleam of bliss, 
 As one brief sun-shaft through some rift of cloud 
 The sullen heavens haste to close up again ; 
 Or as one sweet delirious hour of air, 
 And light, and gladsomeness, and company, 
 Men's voices, and the hubbub of the town, 
 The lines of market carts along the way, 
 Fresh hedgerows, and the dance of rivulets, 
 Song-birds, and gardens, common sights and sounds 
 Of their lost world, to prisoners for life, 
 Marching from prison-house to prison-house. 
 A bridge it was linking two miseries, 
 
Book III. 2 1 3 
 
 A shift of doom for doom, a balanced change 
 
 Of agony which tortured, but had hope, 
 
 For calm which did not torture, but had none. 
 
 Alas, so lost, so loving, and so young ! 
 Life not half spent, yet nothing left of life ; 
 Love perfected, yet nothing left of love ; 
 Loss outlived once to be re-born for ever, 
 Twice knotted on the evil skeins of time, 
 That, once cut, death could only cut again. 
 Ay, only death, far death ; from both of them 
 Jealously hedged by the reluctant years ; 
 Th' inexorable years, that love to creep 
 At foot's pace to the wretched, lengthening out, 
 As skilful torturers, the long between 
 Of dreary growth from youth to middle age, 
 And middle age to dallying decay, 
 That holds its hand with theirs, and makes its sport 
 Of man's impatient welcome. 
 
 Yes ; they lived 
 Each to old age ; for Hubert's chronicle 
 Was written in his fiftieth year, he says ; 
 And Sister Angeline was living then, 
 And Prioress of the Convent on the Hill. 
 To that high place among the Sisterhood, 
 
214 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Her saintliness and beauty, and her zeal 
 
 For discipline, the Order, and good works, 
 
 Had raised her up ; and there perchance she found 
 
 A haven of repose in rule and prayer. 
 
 But Edouard had no heart for monkish things ; 
 
 He lived among the brethren, as he lived 
 
 Through those five years among Du Guesclin's knights, 
 
 Half known, and neither loved nor hated, yet 
 
 Awaking in men's hearts a sense akin 
 
 To love or hate j his gifts, and graciousness — 
 
 For this he ever had — his valorous mien, 
 
 That bore itself e'en under gown and cowl, 
 
 The suffering in his dark Provencal face, 
 
 His knightly fame, the story of his wrong, 
 
 And knowledge that he loved, and had been loved 
 
 By one at once so holy and so fair, 
 
 Made those of kindlier sort to look on him, 
 
 With something of compassionate reverence. 
 
 But to the rest, the love of solitude 
 
 In one so gifted and so famous, one 
 
 Who was not bred a monk, and when he spoke, 
 
 The listless acquiescence of his talk, 
 
 With that intentionless indifference 
 
 To things they valued, but he valued not, 
 
Book III. 2 1 5 
 
 That stings the conscious meanness of the mean, 
 Seemed like disdain ; and, as at the camp-fire, 
 So in that cloister-pen of stunted souls, 
 Begot for him, who knew not what spleen was, 
 The half hate that is born of it. And yet, 
 Spleen or no spleen, hate or no hate, he lived 
 Honoured and free, with Hubert, as of old, 
 To lie down at his feet like a pet hound ; 
 Crippled hound too : he ne'er was hale again 
 After the night at Moulineaux ; perchance 
 He got to horse again too soon, or else 
 The arm of that stout handmaid had the strength 
 To work a lasting harm in his broad back. 
 Whate'er it was, he ne'er could raise a hand 
 Above his head ; and that, as he would say, 
 Stopped all his mace-play. But for this mishap, 
 He scarce had sacrificed his love of war, 
 Even for Edouard ; though, beside his hurt, 
 His love of war had sickened since his arm 
 Failed him so fatally ; his chronicle 
 Throws up remorse, like molehills, everywhere ; 
 He ever calls the fight at Moulineaux 
 " That dark hour of miscarriage and rebuke," 
 And lays his friend's fate to his own account, 
 
216 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 As a great sin, never to be atoned 
 
 While Edouard lived and suffered, though he takes 
 
 His wry neck as his punishment. Poor Mastiff ! 
 
 He whines in half-dumb tones, but tones withal 
 
 Loving, and that strive hard for tenderness, 
 
 Whene'er he talks of Edouard. I have culled 
 
 One page that rings more sadly than the rest, 
 
 Where all ring sadly, and may serve to close 
 
 This outline of a dreary history, 
 
 And show what waiting upon death may mean. 
 
 " I dare swear," Hubert writes, " he never sang, 
 Save once, since we came here ; wherefrom I deem 
 His grief lies heavier on him than it lay 
 Through those five campaigns of the Constable ; 
 Yet well do I remind me of that once ; 
 'Twas a midsummer evening at nightfall ; 
 The sun had scarce set, though the moon had risen, 
 And the two lights blent everywhere ; we sat, 
 The Abbot, and the Prior, and myself, 
 Beside the fish-stews, on the granite bench 
 I chipped and set one winter ; 'twas still hot, 
 For there was little dew, and still less wind ; 
 The great plane leaves above us scarcely moved, 
 And over all the surface of the ponds, 
 
Book III. 2 1 7 
 
 As on a plated corselet or steel helm, 
 
 The red light lay unbroken ; e'en the carp 
 
 Still basked as though 'twere midday, or worked round 
 
 Lazily, while the flashing of their scales, 
 
 Whene'er they rolled up broadside to the sky, 
 
 Gave one more colour to the burnished pools. 
 
 I sat watching a toad crawl on the path, 
 
 And thinking how we crawl along our lives, 
 
 Without the same variety of stones 
 
 To pick our way through ; when a sudden sound 
 
 Shook all my body ; 'twas a lutestring struck 
 
 At Edouard's window. How the sweet note swam 
 
 Throughout the garden ! Then another came, 
 
 And then the half-forgotten voice swelled out, 
 
 Like a soft hillside, fresh, and smooth, and large. 
 
 I put my hand upon the Prior's arm — 
 
 Who would have spoken — with a grip perchance 
 
 Too hard for the occasion ; but it gained 
 
 The silence that it asked ; the song was one 
 
 I knew right well ; he sang but part of it ; 
 
 But part or whole, I was so glad at heart, 
 
 I could have wept a welcome to it. 
 
2 1 8 Le Cozier de Beaumanoir. 
 
 '"Le Jour Mourant. 
 
 " ' A twilight fair as ever fell is falling, 
 
 Low, as thy lover's whisper in the trees, 
 Eve's still small voice of many sounds is calling ; 
 
 Hark, the half-weary wild-birds, at their ease, 
 Flute a last farewell to the flying day ; 
 Anon the nightingale's clear measure taketh, 
 
 From out the darkness of yon ilex-tree, 
 Through the soft, wildered air its trembling way ; 
 
 Day sinks o'erborne ; the hour of love awaketh, 
 Waketh, my love, and waiteth upon thee. 
 
 " ' The water-lilies' open hearts of gold 
 
 Are folded each within a fair white shrine, 
 Matchlessly white, perchance, but ah ! too cold 
 
 To rival those warm caskets over thine. 
 Ah come, ah come ! The melancholy breeze 
 
 Hath stolen his perfumes from unconscious Day, 
 To forge thy breath and mock me, but its cry 
 
 Betrayed it, as it swept the ilices ; 
 So moans it ever, though all else be gay, 
 
 While thy glad spirit cannot frame a sigh. 
 
Book III. 2 1 9 
 
 " ' Along the lustrous causeway of the night 
 
 Yon queenlike moon proceedeth in her pride, 
 Quenching the clustered worlds in silver light ; 
 So shalt thou pass, oh maiden, as my bride, 
 Among the peasants on thy marriage morn.' 
 * # * # # 
 
 His voice fell, and he ceased with that last line, 
 As though the words had hurt him overmuch ; 
 I heard him sigh ; and many minutes passed 
 Ere he began again ; but all the time 
 The Prior was busy with good Abbot Jean, 
 About some monkish nonsense of the rules, 
 Of scandal to the Brothers, worldly songs, 
 And amorous recollections ill for monks, 
 And exercises that the Devil loves — 
 No bad judge that same Devil. In a while, 
 However, thanks to honest Father Jean, 
 Who stared into the pond, and held his peace, 
 Edouard began once more; outswelled the chords, 
 Full as a gale ; it was a song I loved 
 Right well ; he used to sing it in old days 
 Before well-meaning Satan clawed his uncle, 
 Or that scarce lesser fiend fair Angeline. 
 Once more I held my friend the Prior down, 
 
220 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 With such a force as might a warning be 
 
 Of pains to follow, should his piety 
 
 Prove too aggressive ; as I felt him wince, 
 
 Came the sweet Envoi, and I let him go : 
 
 ' This to the city on the silver Seine, 
 
 Where my beloved dwells ; " and then two chords, 
 
 And then a pause ; God, how I knew it all ! 
 
 " ' A Rouen la bien heureuse. 
 
 " ' Alas, that I should wander so, 
 
 From her and thee, from her and thee, 
 
 Ah City, 
 This quest of fame is quest of woe, 
 Of woe in all simplicity, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City where my beloved dwells. 
 
 " ' From plain to hill, and hill to plain, 
 And folk to folk that need redress, 
 
 Ah City, 
 I drag myself with might and main 
 From loneliness to loneliness, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells. 
 
Book III. 221 
 
 " ' The prayers that bid me mount my steed, 
 The cause that lays my lance in rest, 
 
 Ah City, 
 The stricken foemen as they bleed, 
 The white lips to my gauntlet pressed, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells ; 
 
 " 'The grateful kiss of maid or knight, 
 The children clinging to my gown, 
 
 Ah City, 
 As I ride homeward from the fight, 
 
 Loud blessings from the leaguered town, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells ; 
 
 " ' And all else paid to valorous feats, 
 Are nought to me, ah nought to me ; 
 
 Ah City, 
 For when they lead me through their streets, 
 I shake, and inly groan for thee, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells. 
 
222 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 He paused ; his lute had slackened ; and the Prior 
 Might well have heard me curse the shifty strings ; 
 But he spake nought, and Edouard soon sang on : 
 
 " ' Say, dost thou deem thyself more fair, 
 Possessing her, possessing her ? 
 
 Ah City, 
 Or doth the thought that she is there 
 Abate one jot thy careless stir ? 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells. 
 
 " ' Comes there no glory on thy walls, 
 The sun made never heretofore, 
 
 Ah City, 
 When through thy ways her light foot falls 
 From neighbour's door to neighbour's door ? 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells ; 
 
 " ' Or o'er thy Seine no answering glow, 
 Beyond the warmest evening gleam, 
 
 Ah City, 
 
Book III. 223 
 
 When on thy bridge she leans to throw 
 
 Love-freighted rose-leaves down the stream ? 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells. 
 
 " ' Ah no ! to thee and all beside, 
 Save only me, save only me, 
 
 Ah City, 
 By God's great goodness 'tis denied 
 The fulness of her grace to see, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells. 
 
 " ' But unto me the smallest sight, 
 Or sound, akin to aught in thee, 
 
 Ah City, 
 A church bell ringing in the night, 
 A street, a gable, or a tree, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells ; 
 
 " ' O'ershadowing some burgher's eaves, 
 Some varlet's voice or huckster's cry, 
 
 Ah City, 
 
224 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 Will shake my soul, as aspen leaves 
 Shake while all others silent lie, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells.' 
 
 " Once more a spiteful string fell flat, but I 
 Had got my fingers round the Prior's wrist, 
 And he was dumb ; perchance the song itself 
 Melted his virtue, for the words were fair, 
 And set unto a goodly melody. 
 So carp, and garden, Abbot, Prior, and I, 
 Listened, as on sang Edouard, and along 
 The upper dormitory windows stretched 
 A line of heads uncowled. 
 
 " ' God's love ! How sweet to dream that while 
 Her pale eyes to the pale moon shine, 
 
 Ah City, 
 They lend her that soft beam and smile 
 She sheddeth down to-night on mine, 
 
 Ah City, ' 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells. 
 
 " ' And sweet, how very sweet, the thought 
 That from some kindred garden tree, 
 
 Ah City, 
 
Book III. 225 
 
 Such night-bird's notes to her are brought 
 As ever and anon to me. 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells. 
 
 " ' And that like shadows of light leaves 
 Are playing o'er her shoulders white, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Where at her window 'neath the eaves 
 One tall plane whispers in the night, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells. 
 
 " ' But sweeter far, however sweet 
 May be this lover's phantasy, 
 
 Ah City, 
 (Like lips that lips with kisses meet), 
 To dream she too may dreaming be, 
 
 Ah City, 
 Ah happy, happy City, where my beloved dwells.' 
 
 " But after this verse, while his hands drew out 
 A lingering cadence of most passionate sound, 
 Q 
 
226 Le Cceur de Beaumanoir. 
 
 We heard a string snap ; 'twas all over then ; 
 And as I let the vanquished Prior go, 
 I heard poor Father Jean sigh loud ; we rose ; 
 And, as we rose, the jangling chapel bell ] 
 Rang for th' inevitable evensong." 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS : PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 5167.P35F5 
 
 The finding of Pheidippides, and other p 
 
 3 1924 013 534 668