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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 42052
   :PG.Title: The Golden Helm
   :PG.Released: 2013-02-08
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
   :DC.Title: The Golden Helm
              and Other Verse
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1903
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE GOLDEN HELM
===============

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      Cover

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      THE
      GOLDEN HELM
      AND OTHER VERSE

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      BY
      WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

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      LONDON
      ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET
      1903 

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      TO
      HOWARD PEASE

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   *BY THE SAME WRITER*

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   *URLYN THE HARPER AND OTHER SONG*
   *THE QUEEN'S VIGIL AND OTHER SONG*

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Thanks are due to Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co., for
permission to reprint "The King's Death," "The Three
Kings," and the first part of "Averlaine and Arkeld,"
from *The Cornhill Magazine*; to the editor of
*Macmillan's Magazine* for leave to reprint "In the Valley";
to the editor of *The Saturday Review* for leave to
reprint "Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière"; and to the
editors of *The Pilot, The Outlook, The Pall Mall Gazette,
Country Life, The Week's Survey*, and *The Broadsheet*,
for like courtesy with regard to a number of "The Songs
of Queen Averlaine."

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   Contents

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   `The Torch`_
   `The Unknown Knight`_
   `The King's Death`_
   `The Knight of the Wood`_
   `Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière`_
   `In the Valley`_
   `The Vision: a Christmas Mystery`_
   `The Three Kings`_
   `The Songs of Queen Averlaine`_
   `The Golden Helm`_

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.. _`The Torch`:

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   The Torch

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|  Through skies blown clear by storm, o'er storm-spent seas,
|  Day kindled pale with promise of full noon
|  Of blue unclouded; no night-weary wind
|  Ruffled the slumberous, heaving deeps to white,
|  Though round the Farne Isles the waves never sink
|  In foamless sleep--about the pillared crags
|  For ever circling with unresting spray.
|  At dawn's first glimmer, from his island-cell--
|  Rock-hewn, secure from tempest--Oswald came
|  With slow and weary step, white-faced and worn
|  With night-long vigil for storm-perilled souls.
|  His anxious eye with sharp foreboding bright--
|  He scanned the treacherous flood; the long froth-trail
|  That marks the lurking reefs; the jag-toothed chasms
|  Which, foaming, gape at night beneath the keel--
|  The mouth of hell to storm-bewildered ships:
|  But no scar-stranded vessel met his glance.
|  Relieved, he drank the glistering calm of morn,
|  With nostril keen and warm lips parted wide;
|  While, gradually, the sun-enkindled air
|  Quickened his pallid cheek with youthful flame,
|  Though lonely years had silvered his dark head,
|  And round his eyes had woven shadow-meshes.
|  Clearly he caught the ever-clamorous cries
|  Of guillemot and puffin from afar,
|  Where, canopied by hovering, white wings,
|  They crowded naked pinnacles of rock.
|  He watched, with eyes of glistening tenderness,
|  The brooding eider--Cuthbert's sacred bird,
|  That bears among the isles his saintly name--
|  Breast the calm waves; a black, wet-gleaming fin
|  Cleft the blue waters with a foaming jag,
|  Where, close behind the restless herring-herd,
|  With ravening maw of death, the porpoise sped.
|  Oswald, light-tranced, dreamed in the sun awhile;
|  Till, suddenly, as some old sorrow starts,
|  Though years have glided by with soothing lull,
|  The gust of ancient longing rent his bliss:
|  His narrow isle, as by some darkling spell,
|  More narrow shrank; the gulls' unceasing cries
|  Grew still more fretful; and his hermit-life
|  A sea-scourged desolation to him seemed.
|  The holy tree of peace--which he had dreamt
|  Would flourish in the wilderness afresh,
|  Upspringing ever in new ecstasy
|  Of branching beauty and white blooms of truth,
|  Till its star-tangling crest should cleave the sky,
|  And angels rustle through its topmost boughs--
|  Seemed sapless, rootless.  Through his quivering limbs
|  His famine-wasted youth to life upleapt
|  With passionate yearning for humanity:
|  The stir of towns; the jostling of glad throngs;
|  Welcoming faces and warm-clasping hands;
|  Yea, even for the lips and eyes of Love
|  He hungered with keen pangs of old desire:
|  And, if for him these might not be, he craved
|  At least the exultation of swift peril--
|  The red-foamed riot of delirious strife
|  That rears a bloody crest o'er peaceful shires,
|  And, slaying, in a swirl of slaughter dies.
|  With brow uplifted and strained, pulsing throat,
|  And salt-parched lips out-thrust, unto the sun
|  He stretched beseeching hands, as though he sought
|  To snatch some glittering disaster thence.
|  One moment radiant thus; and then once more
|  His arms dropped listless, and he slowly shrank
|  Within his sea-stained habit, cowering dark
|  Amid the azure blaze of sea and sky.
|  Then, stirring, with impatient step he moved
|  Across the isle to where the rocky shore,
|  Forming a little, crag-encircled bay,
|  Sloped steeply to the level of the sea;
|  But, as he neared the edges of the tide,
|  Startled, he paused, as, marvelling, he saw
|  A woman on the shelving, wet, black rock,
|  Lying, forlorn, among the storm-wrack, white
|  And motionless; still wet, her raiment clung
|  About her limbs, and with her wet, gold hair
|  Green sea-weed tangled.  Oswald on her looked
|  Amazed, as one who, in a sea-born trance,
|  Discovers the lone spirit of the storm,
|  Self-spent at last, and sunk in dreamless slumber
|  Within some caverned gloom.  Coldly he watched
|  The little waves creep up the glistening rock,
|  And, faltering, slide once more into the deep,
|  As though they feared to waken her: at length,
|  When one, more venturous, about her stole,
|  And moved her heavy hair as if with life,
|  He shuddered; and a lightning-knowledge struck
|  His heart with fear; and in a flash he knew
|  That no sea-phantom couched before him lay,
|  But some frail fellow-creature, tempest-tost,
|  Hung yet in peril on the edge of death,
|  Her weak life slipping from the saving grasp
|  While he delayed.  He sprang through plashy weed,
|  O'er slippery ridges, to the rock whereon
|  She lay with upturned face and close-shut eyes--
|  One hand across her breast, the other dipped
|  Within a shallow pool of emerald water,
|  With blue-veined fingers clutching the red fronds
|  Of frail sea-weed.  Then Oswald, bending, felt
|  Upon his cheek the feeble breath that still
|  Fluttered between the pallid, parted lips.
|  In trembling haste, he loosed the sodden cords
|  That bound her to a spar; and with hot hands
|  He chafed her icy limbs, until the glow
|  Of life returned.  With fitful quivering
|  The white lids opened; and she looked on him
|  With dull, unwondering eyes whose deep-sea blue
|  The gloom of death's late passing shadowed yet;
|  When suddenly light thrilled them, and bright fear
|  Flashed from their depths, and, with a little gasp,
|  She strove to rise; but Oswald with quick words
|  Calmed her weak terror, and she sank once more,
|  Closing her eyes; and, gently lifting her
|  Within his arms--her gold hair hanging straight
|  And heavy with sea-water, as he plunged
|  Knee-deep through pools of crackling bladder-weed--
|  He bore her, unresisting, o'er the isle
|  Unto the rock-built shelter he had reared,
|  Some little way apart from his own cell,
|  For storm-stayed fishers or wrecked mariners.
|  He laid her on a bed of withered bents,
|  And ministered to her with gentle hands
|  And ceaseless care; till, wrapped in warm, deep sleep,
|  She sank oblivious.  Silently he placed
|  His island-fare beside her on the board,
|  Lest she should wake in need; then, with hushed step,
|  He turned to go; but, ere he reached the door,
|  He paused, and looked again towards the bed,
|  As though he feared his strange sea-guest might flee
|  Like some wild spirit, born of wondering foam,
|  That wins from man the shelter of his breast,
|  Then, on a night of moon-enchanted tides,
|  Leaps with shrill laughter to its native seas,
|  Bearing his soul within its glistening arms,
|  To drown his peace on earth and hope of heaven
|  In cold eternities of lightless deeps.
|  But still in dreamless sleep the stranger lay,
|  With parted lips and breathing soft and calm;
|  About her head unloosed, her hair outshone,
|  Among the grey-green bents, like fine, red gold.
|  So beautiful she was that Oswald, pierced
|  With quivering rapture, dared no longer bide,
|  But, with quick fingers, softly raised the latch,
|  And stumbled o'er the threshold.  As he went,
|  A flock of sea-gulls from the bent-thatched roof
|  Rose, querulous, and round him, wheeling, swept,
|  With creaking wings and cold, black eyes agleam;
|  Yet Oswald saw them not, nor heard their cries;
|  Nor saw he, as he paced the eastern crags,
|  How, round the Farnes, the dreaming ocean lay
|  In broad, unshadowed, sapphire ecstasy,
|  That glowed to noon through slow, uncounted hours.
|  His early gloom had vanished; time and space
|  And earth and sea no longer compassed him;
|  One thought alone consumed him--beauty slept
|  Within the shelter of his hermitage,
|  Upon grey, rustling bents, with golden hair.
|  He roamed, unresting, till the copper sun
|  Sank in a steel-grey sea, and earth and sky
|  Were strewn with shadows--wavering and dim--
|  To weave a pathway for the dawning moon,
|  That she, from night's oblivion, might create
|  With the cold spell of her enchantments old
|  A phantom earth with magical, bright seas,
|  A vaster heaven of unrevealed stars.
|  Unmoving, on a headland of swart crag
|  That jutted gaunt and sharp against the night,
|  Stood Oswald, cowled and silent.  Hour by hour
|  He gazed across the sea, which nothing shadowed,
|  Save where--now dim, now white--a lonely sail
|  Hung, restless, o'er a fisher's barren toil.
|  Yet Oswald saw nor sail nor moon nor sea:
|  His heart kept vigil by the little house
|  Wherein the stranger slumbered; and it seemed
|  His life, by some strange power within him stayed,
|  Awaited the unlatching of the door.

|  But now, within the hut, the sleeper dreamt
|  Of foaming caverns and o'erwhelming waters;
|  Then, shuddering awake, awhile she lay,
|  And watched the moonlight, cold and white, which poured
|  Through the warm dusk, from the high window-slit;
|  When, all at once, the strangeness of the room
|  Closed in upon her with bewildering dread.
|  She stirred; the bents, beneath her, rustled strange;
|  She started in affright, and, swaying, stood
|  Within the streaming moonlight, till, at last,
|  In memory, once more disaster swept
|  Over her life, and left her, desolate,
|  Upon bleak crags of alien seas unknown.
|  Yet, through the tumult of tempestuous dark,
|  Above the echo of despairing cries,
|  A calm voice sounded; and beyond the whirl
|  Of foaming death, wherein she caught the gleam
|  Of well-loved faces drowning in cold seas,
|  A living face shone out--a beacon clear:
|  Then numbing fear fell from her, and she moved,
|  Unlatched the door, and stole into the night.
|  One moment, dazzled by the full-moon glare,
|  She paused, a shivering form within the wide
|  And glittering desolation--lone and frail.
|  But Oswald, watchful on the eastern scars,
|  Seeing her, forward came with eager pace
|  To meet her; and, as he drew swiftly near,
|  His cowl fell backward; and she knew again
|  The face that calmed the terrors of her dreams.
|  Yet, with the knowledge, through her being stole,
|  Vague fear more strange, more impotent than the blind
|  Unquestioning dread when death had round her stormed;
|  No peril of the body could arouse
|  Such ecstasy of terror in her soul,
|  Which seemed upborne upon the shivering crest
|  Of some great wave, just curving, ere it crash
|  Upon the crags of time.  Yet, though she feared
|  When Oswald paused, uncertain, quick she spake,
|  As though she sought to parry doom with words.
|  She questioned him--scarce heeding his replies--
|  How she had hither come; when, suddenly,
|  Sped by her fluttering words, the last, dim cloud
|  Rolled from her memory, and she saw revealed
|  Within a pitiless glare of naked light
|  The utmost horror of her desolation.
|  Mute with despair, she stood with parted lips,
|  And then cried fiercely: "Hath the sea upcast
|  None other on this shore?  Am I, alone,
|  Of all my kin who sailed in that doomed ship,
|  Flung back to life?"  And as, with piteous glance,
|  He answered her: "Ah God, that I, with them,
|  Had died!  O traitor cords that held too sure
|  My body to the broken spar of life!
|  O feeble seas, that fumed in such wild wrath,
|  Yet could not quench so frail a thing as I!"
|  With passionate step, across the isle she ran,
|  And leapt from crag to crag, until she stood
|  Upon a dizzy scar that jutted sheer
|  Above low-lapping waves.  Then once again
|  Her moaning cry was heard among the Isles:
|  "O bitter waters, give them back to me!
|  You shall not keep them; all your waves of woe
|  Cannot withhold from me those dauntless lives
|  That were my life.  Surely they cannot rest
|  Without me; even from your unfathomed graves
|  Surely my love will draw them to my arms!"
|  As though in tremulous expectation tranced,
|  She yearned, with arms outstretched; as dawn arose
|  Exultant from the sea, and with clear rays
|  Kindled her wind-tost hair to streaming flame.

|  Awhile she stood, then, moaning, slowly sank
|  Upon the crag; and Oswald came to her
|  With words of comfort which unloosed her pent
|  And aching woe in swift, tumultuous tears.
|  Oswald, in silent anguish, drew apart,
|  Gazing, unseeing, o'er the dawning waves;
|  Until at last the tempest of her grief,
|  In low and fitful sobbing, spent itself;
|  When, turning to him, once again she spake,
|  And, shuddering, with faltering voice, outpoured
|  The tale of her despair: and Oswald heard
|  How she, who sat thus strangely by his side,
|  Marna, a sea-earl's daughter, had besought
|  Her father, when the old sea-hunger lit
|  His eyes--as waves shot through with stormy fight--
|  For leave to bear him company but once,
|  When, with his sons, he rode the adventurous seas;
|  How he had yielded with reluctant love;
|  And how, from out the firth of some far strand,
|  Their galley rode, beneath a flaming dawn;
|  How her young heart had leapt to see the sails
|  Unfurled to take the wind, as, one by one,
|  Toil-glistening rowers shipped the dripping oars,
|  And loosened every sheet before the breeze;
|  How, as the ship with timbers all astrain,
|  Leapt to mid-sea, through Marna's body thrilled
|  A kindred rapture, and there came to her
|  The sheer, delirious joy of them true-born
|  To wander with the foam--each creaking cord
|  That tugged the quivering mast unto her singing
|  Of unknown shores and far, enchanted lands,
|  Beyond the blue horizon; how, all day,
|  They rode, undaunted, through the spinning surf;
|  But, as the sun dipped, in the cold, grey tide,
|  The wind, that since the dawn with steady speed
|  Had filled the sails, now came in fitful gusts,
|  Fierce and yet fiercer, till the sullen waves
|  Were lashed to anger, and the waters leapt
|  To tussle with the furies of the air;
|  And how the ship, in the encounter caught,
|  Was tossed on crests of swirling dark, or dropped
|  Between o'er-toppling walls of whelming night;
|  How in those hours--too dread for thought or speech--
|  Her father's hand had bound her to a spar;
|  And, even as--the cord between his teeth--
|  He tugged the last knot sure, the vessel crashed
|  Upon a cleaving scar; and she but saw
|  The strong, pale faces looking upon death,
|  Before the fierce, exultant waters closed
|  With cold oblivion o'er them; and no more
|  She knew, until she waked within the hut,
|  To find her world, in one disastrous night,
|  In one swift surge of roaring darkness, swept
|  From her young feet; her kindred, home and friends,
|  And all familiar hopes and joys and fears
|  Dropt like a garment from her life, which now
|  Stood naked on the edge of some new world
|  Of unknown terrors.
|                       Oswald heard her tale
|  With pitying glance; yet in his eyes arose
|  A strange, new light, which as each gust of grief
|  Shook out the fluttering words, more brightly burned;
|  So that, when Marna ceased, it seemed to her
|  That he, in holy contemplation rapt,
|  Had heeded not her woe; and from her heart
|  Burst out a cry: "Ah God, I am alone!"
|  But, stung by her shrill anguish, Oswald waked
|  From his bright reverie, and his shining eyes
|  Darkened with swift compassion, as he turned
|  And, trembling, spake: "Nay, not alone..."
|      Then mute
|  He stood--his pale lips clenched--as though within
|  There surged a torrent which he dared not loose.
|  Marna looked wondering up; but, when her eyes
|  Saw the white passion of his face, her soul
|  Was tossed once more on crests of unknown fears;
|  Yet rapture warred with terror in her heart;
|  She trembled, and her breath came short and quick.
|  She dared not raise her eyes again to his,
|  Till, on her straining ears, his words, once more,
|  Fell, slow and cold and clear as water dripping
|  Between locked sluice-gates: "Nothing need you fear.
|  Beyond the sea of unknown terrors lie
|  White havens of an undiscovered peace.
|  For even this bleak, scar-embattled coast
|  May yield safe harbour to the storm-spent soul.
|  Your world has fallen from you that you may
|  Enter another world, more beautiful,
|  Built 'neath the shadow of the throne of God.
|  There shall you find new friends, who yet will seem
|  Familiar to your eyes, because their souls
|  Have passed through kindred perils and despairs."
|  He ceased; and silence, trembling, 'twixt them hung;
|  Till Marna, gazing yet across the sea,
|  Rent it with words: "Where may I find this peace?"
|  And Oswald answered: "In an inland dale
|  The Sisters of the Cross await your coming,
|  With ever-open gate.  Within seven days,
|  My brethren from the mainland will put out,
|  Bringing me food; on their return with them
|  You may embark.  Till then, this barren rock
|  Must be your home."  Exultant light once more
|  Leapt, flashing, in the depths of his dark eyes.
|  Yet Marna looked not up, but, slowly, spake:
|  "Yea, I must go....  But you...."
|      Then in dismay
|  She stopped, as though the thought had slipped unknown
|  From her full heart; but Oswald caught the words,
|  And spake with hard, quick speech, as if to baffle
|  Some doubt that strove within him: "On this Isle
|  I bide, till God shall kindle my weak soul
|  To burn, a beacon o'er His lonely seas."
|  Once more he paused; and perilous silence swayed
|  Between them, until Oswald, quaking, rose,
|  As one who dared no longer rest beneath
|  O'er-toppling doom.  Yet, with calm voice, he spake:
|  "Even within this wilderness abides
|  Such beauty that, in your brief sojourn here,
|  Your soul shall starve not; all about you sweeps
|  The ever-changing wonder of the sea;
|  But if, too full of bitter memories,
|  The bright waves darken, you may lift your eyes
|  To watch the swooping gull; the flashing tern;
|  The stately cormorant and the kittiwake--
|  Most beautiful of all the island-birds;
|  Or, if your woman's heart should crave some grace
|  More exquisite, see, frail bell-campions blow,
|  As foam-flowers on the shallow, sandy turf."
|  As thus he spake, a light in Marna's eyes
|  Arose, and sorrow left her for awhile:
|  And she with bright glance questioned him, and watched
|  The hovering gulls, and plucked the snowy blooms,
|  With little cries at each discovered beauty.
|  Yet Oswald by her side walked silently,
|  And watched, as one struck mute with anguished fear,
|  Her eager eyes, and heard her chattering words.
|  Then, suddenly, he left her, but returned
|  Within the hour, with faltering step, and spake
|  With tremulous voice: "We two must part awhile;
|  For I must keep lone vigil in my cell
|  Six days and nights, with fasting and with prayer;
|  Meanwhile, within the little hut for you
|  Are food and shelter till the brethren come.
|  When I must give you over to their care."
|  Marna, with wondering heart, looked up at him;
|  But such a wild light flickered in his eyes
|  She dared not speak; and, shuddering, he turned,
|  And strode back swiftly to the hermitage.

|  Marna looked after him with yearning gaze,
|  As though her heart would have her call him back,
|  Yet her lips moved not; motionless, she watched
|  Until he passed from sight; then, sinking low
|  Among the flowers, she wept, she knew not why.

|  And, as the door closed on him, Oswald fell
|  Prone on the cold, black, vigil-furrowed rock
|  That paved his narrow cell; and long he lay
|  As in the clutch of some dread waking-trance,
|  Nor stirred until the shadows into night
|  Were woven.  Then unto his feet he leapt
|  With this wild cry: "O God, why hast Thou sent
|  This scourge most bitter for my naked soul?
|  I feared not storm nor solitude, O God;
|  I shrank not from the tempest of Thy wrath;
|  Though oft my weak soul wavered, trampled o'er
|  By deedless hours, and yearned unto the world,
|  Ever afresh Thy love hath bound me fast
|  Unto this island of Thy lonely seas;
|  And I, who deemed that I at last might reach--
|  I who had come through all--Thy golden haven,
|  Knew not Thy hand withheld this last despair,
|  This scourge most bitter, being most beautiful."
|  Then on his knees he sank, and tried to pray
|  Before the Virgin's shrine, where ever burned
|  His votive taper with unfailing light.
|  But when his lips would breathe the holy name,
|  His heart cried: "Marna!  Marna!"  Every pulse
|  Throbbed "Marna!"  And his body shook and swayed,
|  As though it strove to utter that one word,
|  And cry it once unto eternal stars,
|  Though it should perish crying.  Through the cell
|  The silence murmured: "Marna!"  And without
|  A lone gull wailed it to the windy night.
|  He lifted his wild eyes, and in the shrine
|  He saw the face of Marna, which outburned
|  The flickering taper; on the gloom up-surged,
|  Foam-white, the face of Marna; till the dark
|  Flowed pitiful o'er him, and on the stone
|  He sank unconscious.  Night went slowly by,
|  And pale dawn stole in silence through his cell;
|  And, in the light of morn, the taper died,
|  With feeble guttering; yet he never stirred,
|  Though noonday waxed and waned.
|                           But Marna roamed
|  All night beneath the stars.  To her it seemed
|  That not until the closing of the door
|  Had all hope perished: now death tore, afresh,
|  Her father and her brothers from her arms.
|  By day and night and under sun and moon
|  She roamed unresting--seeing, heeding naught--
|  Till weariness o'ercame her, and she slept;
|  And, as she slumbered, snowy-plumed peace
|  Nestled within her heart; and, when she waked,
|  She only yearned for that dim, cloistral calm,
|  Embosomed deep in some bough-sheltered vale,
|  Whither the boat must bear her.
|                                  In his cell,
|  As night paled slowly to the seventh morn,
|  Oswald arose--the fire within his eyes
|  Yet more intense, more fierce.  With eager hand
|  He clutched the latch, and, flinging wide the door,
|  He strode into the dawn.  One moment, dazed,
|  As though bewildered by the light, he paused;
|  But, when his glance in restless roving fell
|  On Marna, standing on the western crag
|  Against the setting moon, beneath the dawn,
|  His passion surged upon him, and he shook;
|  Then, springing madly forth, he, stumbling, ran,
|  And, falling at her feet upon the rock,
|  His voice rang out in fearful exultation:
|  "You shall not go!  I cannot let you go!
|  Has not the tumult tossed you to my breast?
|  Yea, and not all the storms of all the seas
|  Shall drag you from me!  Nay, you shall not go!
|  For we will live together on this isle
|  Which time has builded in the deeps for us--
|  We two together, one in ecstasy,
|  Throughout eternity; for time shall fall
|  From off us; and the world shall be no more:
|  And God, if God should stand between us now..."
|  Faltering, he paused; and Marna stood, afraid,
|  Quaking before him; but she spake no word.
|  Across the waters came the plash of oars;
|  But Oswald heard them not, and once more cried:
|  "You will not go--thrusting me back to death?
|  For now I know the strange, new thing you brought
|  For me from out the storm was life--yea, life;
|  And I am one arisen from the grave.
|  You will not thrust me back and take again
|  That which you came through storm to bring to me?
|  You will not go?  I cannot let you go!"

|  He ceased; and now the even plash of oars
|  Came clearer.  One dread moment Marna stood
|  Swaying; then, stretching forth her arms, she cried:
|  "Ah God!  Ah God!  Why hath Thy cold hand set
|  This doom upon me?  Must I ever bear
|  Death and disaster unto whom I love?
|  Oh, is it not enough that, 'neath the wave,
|  Because I sought to bear them company,
|  My father and my brothers lie in death?
|  But this--ah God--that it should come to this!
|  Must I bear ever death within my hands?"

|  She paused one moment, with wild-heaving breast;
|  Then, turning unto Oswald, spake again,
|  With softer voice: "But you--have you no pity?
|  You who are but God's servant--surely you
|  Have pity on my weakness.  From this doom
|  Which overhangs me you must set me free.
|  You say I brought you life; but in me lies
|  For you--the priest of God--a death more deep
|  Than all the drowning fathoms of the sea.
|  I go, that you may live.  If life indeed
|  I brought you, I was but the torch of God
|  To kindle the clear flame of your strong soul
|  To burn, a beacon o'er His lonely seas."
|  She ceased, with arms outstretched and lighted eyes.
|  As on some holy vision Oswald gazed
|  In rapt, adoring fear; nor spake, nor stirred.
|  Near, and yet nearer, drew the plash of oars;
|  And, turning in the boat, the brethren looked
|  With wondering eyes upon them, whispering: "Lo,
|  Some seraph-messenger of God most high
|  Tarries with Oswald.  See the strange new peace
|  That burns his face like a white altar-flame.
|  Not yet must we draw near, lest our weak sight
|  Be blinded by that glory of gold hair
|  That gleams so strangely in the light of dawn."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The Unknown Knight`:

.. class:: center large

   The Unknown Knight

.. vspace:: 2

|  When purple gloomed the wintry ridge
|    Against the sunset's windy flame,
|  From pine-browed hills, along the bridge,
|    An unknown rider came.

|  I watched him idly from the tower.
|    Though he nor looked nor raised his head;
|  I felt my life before him cower
|    In dumb, foreboding dread.

|  I saw him to the portal win
|    Unchallenged, and no lackey stirred
|  To take his bridle when within
|    He strode without a word.

|  Through all the house he passed unstayed,
|    Until he reached my father's door;
|  The hinge shrieked out like one afraid;
|    Then silence fell once more.

|  All night I hear the chafing ice
|    Float, griding, down the swollen stream;
|  I lie fast-held in terror's vice,
|    Nor dare to think or dream.

|  I only know the unknown knight
|    Keeps vigil by my father's bed:
|  Oh, who shall wake to see the light
|    Flame all the east with red?





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The King's Death`:

.. class:: center large

     The King's Death

.. vspace:: 2

*The sleeping-chamber of the King: a candle burns
dimly by the curtained bed.  The arras parts, and
two slaves enter with daggers.  A storm of wind rages
without.*

|  FIRST SLAVE: He sleeps.

|  SECOND SLAVE: He sleeps, whom only death shall rouse
|  To dread unsleeping in another world.

|  FIRST SLAVE: How long the careful night has kept him wakeful,
|  As if sleep loathed to snare him for our knives!

|  SECOND SLAVE: Yea, we have crouched so close in quaking dark
|  I scarce can lift my sword-arm: strike you first.

|  FIRST SLAVE: The heavy waiting hours have crushed my strength;
|  The hate that burst to such an eager flame
|  Within my heart has smouldered to dull ash,
|  Which pity breathes to scatter.

|  SECOND SLAVE: Knows he pity?

|  FIRST SLAVE: Nay, he is throned above his slaughtered kin,
|  A reeking sword his sceptre.  He has broken,
|  As one across the knee a faggot snaps,
|  Strong lives to feed the blaze of his ambition;
|  Yet shall a slave's hand strike cold death in him
|  For whom kings sweat like slaves?

|  SECOND SLAVE: Yea, at the stroke
|  One slave lies dead--a hundred kings are born;
|  For every man that breathes will be a king;
|  Vast empires, beaten-dust beneath his feet,
|  Will rise again and teem with kingly men,
|  When he, their death, is dead

|  FIRST SLAVE: How still he sleeps!
|  The tempest shrieks to wake him, yet he slumbers.
|  As seas that foam against unyielding scars,
|  The mad wind storms the castle, wall and tower,
|  And is not spent.  Hark, it has found a breach--
|  Some latch unloosed--the house is full of wind;
|  It rushes, wailing, down the corridor;
|  It seeks the King; it cries on him to waken;
|  Now 'tis without, and shakes the rattling bolt;
|  Lo, it has broken in, in little gusts,
|  I feel it in my hair; 'twill lay cold fingers
|  Upon his lips, and start him from his sleep.
|  See, it has whipt the yellow flame to smoke.

|  SECOND SLAVE: And now it fails; the heavy, hanging gold
|  That shelters him from night is all unstirred.

|  FIRST SLAVE: Even the wind must pause.

|  SECOND SLAVE: 'Twas but a breeze
|  To blow our sinking courage to clear fire.
|  Too long we loiter; soon the approaching day
|  Will take us, slaves who grasp the arms of men
|  Yet dare not plunge them save in our own breasts.
|  Come, let us strike!

|  (*They approach the bed and draw aside the curtain.*)

|  FIRST SLAVE: The King--how still he sleeps!
|  Can majesty in such calm slumber lie?

|  SECOND SLAVE: Come, falter not, strike home!

|  FIRST SLAVE: Hold, hold your hand,
|  For death has stolen a march upon our hate;
|  He does not breathe.

|  SECOND SLAVE: The stars have wrought for us,
|  And we are conquerors with unbloodied hands.

|  FIRST SLAVE: Nay, nay, for in our thoughts his life was spilt;
|  While yet our bodies lagged in fettered fear,
|  Our shafted breath sped on and stabbed his sleep.
|  Oh, red for all the world, across our brows,
|  Our murderous thoughts have burned the brand of Cain.
|  See, through the window stares the pitiless day!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The Knight of the Wood`:

.. class:: center large

   The Knight of the Wood

.. vspace:: 2

|  "I fear the Knight of the Wood," she said
|  "For him may no man overthrow.
|  Where boughs are matted thick o'erhead,
|  There gleams, amid the shadows dread,
|  The terror of his armour red;
|  And all men fear him, high and low;
|  Yet all must through the forest go."

|  She paused awhile where larches flame
|  About the borders of the wood;
|  Then, crying loud on Love's high name
|  To keep her maiden-heart from shame,
|  She entered, and full-swiftly came
|  Where, hooded with a scarlet hood,
|  A rider in her pathway stood.

|  She saw the gleam of armour red;
|  She saw the fiery pennon wave
|  Its flaming terror overhead
|  'Mid writhing boughs and shadows dread.
|  "Ah God," she cried: "that I were dead,
|  And laid for ever in my grave!"
|  Then, swooning, called on Love to save.

|  Among the springing fern she fell,
|  And very nigh to death she lay;
|  Till, like the fading of a spell
|  At ringing of the matin-bell,
|  The darkness left her; by a well
|  She waked beneath the open day,
|  And rose to go upon her way;

|  When, once again, the ruddy light
|  Of arms she saw, and turned to flee;
|  But clutching brambles stayed her flight;
|  While, marvelling, she saw the Knight
|  Unhooded; and his eyes were bright
|  With April colours of the sea;
|  And crowned as a King was he.

|  She knelt before him in the ferns,
|  And sang: "O Lord of Love, I bow
|  Before thy shield, where blazoned burns
|  The flaming heart with light that turns
|  The night to day.  O heart that yearns
|  For love, lo, Love before thee now--
|  The wild-wood knight with crownèd brow!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière`:

.. class:: center large

   Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière

.. vspace:: 2

|  Above Thy halo's burning blue
|  For ever hovers the White Dove;
|  Thy heart enshrines, for ever new,
|  The Cross--the Crown of all Thy love;
|  While, sapphire wing on sapphire wing,
|  About Thee choiring angels swing
|  Gold censers, and bright candles bear.
|  Because I have no heart to sing,
|  I come to Thee with all my care,
|  *Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière.*

|  Because the sword hath pierced Thy side,
|  Thy brows are crowned with circling gold.
|  The woe of all the world doth hide
|  Within Thy mantle's azure fold.
|  Because Thou, too, hast dwelt with fears,
|  Through lingering days and endless years,
|  I find no comfort otherwhere,
|  Our Lady beautiful with tears,
|  Our Lady sorrowfully fair,
|  *Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière.*

|  My feet have travelled the hot road
|  Between the poppies' barren fires;
|  But now I cast aside the load
|  Of burning hopes and wild desires
|  That ever fierce and fiercer grew.
|  Thy peace falls like a falling dew
|  Upon me as I kneel in prayer,
|  Because Thou hast known sorrow, too,
|  Because Thou, too, hast known despair,
|  *Notre Dame de la Belle-Verrière.*





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`In the Valley`:

.. class:: center large

   In the Valley

.. vspace:: 2

|  Love, take my hand, and look not with sad eyes
|  Through the valley-shades: for us, the mountains rise;
|  Beneath the cold, blue-cleaving peaks of snow
|  Like flame the April-blossomed almonds blow--
|  Spring-grace and winter-glory intertwined
|  Within the glittering web that colour weaves.

|  *Yet who are they who troop so close behind*
|  *With raiment rustling like frost-withered leaves*
|  *That burden winter-winds with ever-restless sighs?*

|  Love, look not back, nor ever hearken more
|  To murmuring shades; for us, the river-shore
|  Is lit with dew-hung daffodils that gleam
|  On either side the tawny, foaming stream
|  That bears through April with triumphal song
|  Dissolving winter to the brimming sea.

|  *Yet who are they who, ever-whispering, throng,*
|  *With lean, grey lips that shudder piteously,*
|  *As if from some bright fruit of bitter-tasting core?*

|  Nay, look not back, for, lo, in trancèd light
|  Love stays awhile his world-encircling flight
|  To wait our coming from the valley-ways;
|  See where, a hovering fire amid the blaze,
|  He pants aflame with irised plumes unfurled
|  Above the utmost pinnacle of noon.

|  *Yet who are they who wander through the world*
|  *Like weary clouds about a wintry moon,*
|  *With wan, bewildered brows that bear eternal night?*

|  Love, look not back, nor fill thy heart with woe
|  Of old, sad loves that perished long ago;
|  For ever after living lovers tread
|  Pale, yearning ghosts of all earth's lovers dead.
|  A little while with life we lead the train
|  Ere we, too, follow, cold, some breathing love.

|  *I fear their fevered eyes and hands that strain*
|  *To snatch our joy that flutters bright above,*
|  *To shadow with grey death its ruddy, pulsing glow.*

|  Love, look not back in this life-crowning hour
|  When all our love breaks into perfect flower
|  Beneath the kindling heights of frozen time.
|  Come, Love, that we with happy haste may climb
|  Beyond the valley, and may chance to see
|  Some unknown peak that cleaves unfading skies.

|  *Old sorrow saps my strength; I may not flee*
|  *The flame of passionate hunger in their eyes;*
|  *Beseeching shade on shade--they hold me in their power.*

|  Love, look not back, for, all too brief, our day,
|  In wilder glories flameth fast away.
|  Lo, even now, the northern snow-ridge glows--
|  With purple shadowed--from pale gold to rose
|  That shivers white beneath stars dawning cold.
|  Lift up thine eyes ere all the colour fades.

|  *Ah, rainbow-plumèd Love in airs of gold,*
|  *Too late I turn, a shade among the shades.*
|  *To follow, death-enthralled, thy flight through ages grey.*





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The Vision: a Christmas Mystery`:

.. class:: center large

   The Vision.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY.

|  PERSONS: A YOUNG HERD.  HIS MOTHER.
|  SCENE: THE QUEEN'S CRAGS.
|  TIME: CHRISTMAS EVE.

*The herd stands at the foot of the Crags, gazing
across the dark fells.  His mother enters.*

|  MOTHER: Son, come home, nor tarry here
|  In this peril-haunted place.
|  My old heart is filled with fear
|  By the white flame of thy face,
|  And thine eyes whose restless fire
|  Burneth ever wild and clear
|  As red peats between the bars.
|  Son, come home; the night is cold;
|  Dropping from the wintry stars,
|  Tingling frost falls through the air;
|  See, the bents are white with rime;
|  All the sheep are in the fold;
|  All the cattle in the byre;
|  Only we, of live things, roam
|  O'er the fells so far from home;
|  E'en the red fox in his lair
|  Snuggles close to keep him warm;
|  And the lonely, wandering hare
|  Crouches, shivering, in her form;
|  While by Greenlea's frozen edge
|  Hides the mallard in the sedge.
|  Son, come home; the ingle-seat
|  Waits thee by the glowing peat,
|  And the door is off the latch.
|  Come, and we will feast and sing,
|  As of old at Christmas time,
|  Until thou wilt drowse and nod
|  And with slumber-drooping head
|  Gladly seek thy bracken-bed
|  Underneath the heather-thatch;
|  Where the healing sleep will bring
|  Unto thee the peace of God.
|  Son, come home!  Whom seekest thou there?

|  HERD: Guenevere!  O Guenevere!

|  MOTHER: Cry no more on Guenevere.
|  Some wild warlock of the fells,
|  Born beneath the Devil's Scars,
|  Lures thee forth to drown thy soul
|  Deep in Broomlea-water cold.
|  Guenevere no longer dwells
|  Anywhere beneath the stars;
|  Though she walked these Crags of old,
|  Many hundred years ago,
|  Into earth she sank like snow;
|  As a sunset-cloud in rain
|  Breaks, and showers the thirsty plain,
|  All the glory of her hair
|  Fell to earth, we know not where.
|  Leave thy foolish quest forlorn.
|  Lo, to-night a King is born,
|  Who, when earthly kings at last
|  Into wildering night are passed,
|  Yet shall wear the crown of morn.

|  Mary, Thou whose love may turn
|  Eyes that after evil burn,
|  Draw his soul, that strays so far,
|  To Thy Son's white throning-star.
|  Queen of Heaven, hear my prayer!

|  HERD: Guenevere!  O Guenevere!

|  MOTHER: Low she lies, and may not hear.
|  The white lily, Guenevere,
|  Ruthless time has trodden down;
|  Arthur is a tarnished crown,
|  High Gawain a broken spear,
|  Percival a riven shield;
|  They, who taught the world to yield,
|  Closed with death and lost the field,
|  Stricken by the last despair:
|  Launcelot is but a name
|  Blown about the winds of shame;
|  Surely God has quenched the flame
|  That burned men's souls for Guenevere.

|  Mary, heed a mother's woe;
|  Mary, heed a mother's tears!
|  Thou, whose heart so long ago
|  Knew the pangs and hopes and fears
|  We poor mortal mothers know;
|  Thou, to whom, on Christmas-morn,
|  Christ, the Son of God, was born;
|  Thou whose mother-love hath pressed
|  The sweet Babe against thy breast;
|  And with wondering joy hath felt
|  The warm clutch of little hands,
|  When the Kings from far-off lands--
|  Crowned with gold, in gold attire--
|  With the simple shepherds knelt
|  'Mid the beasts within the byre;
|  Mary, if Thy heart, afraid,
|  When beyond Thy care he strayed,
|  Sometimes grieved that he must grow
|  Unlike other boys and men--
|  Filled with dreams beyond Thy ken,
|  Anguished with diviner woe,
|  Pangs more fiery than Thy pain,
|  Deeper than Thy dark despair--
|  From the perils of the night
|  Give me back my son again.
|  Thou, whose love may never fail,
|  Heed a lonely mother's prayer!
|  Come in all Thy healing might!

*A sudden glory sweeps across the Fells.  The vision
appears in a cleft of the Crags.  The herd and
his mother kneel before it.*

|  MOTHER: Mary, Queen of Heaven, hail!

|  HERD (*falling forward*): Guenevere!  Guenevere!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE THREE KINGS`:

.. class:: center large

   THE THREE KINGS.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium

   To C. J. S.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large

   The Three Kings

|  PERSONS: KING GARLAND, KING ARLO, KING ASHALORN.

|  SEA-VOICES, WAVE-VOICES, AND WIND-VOICES.

|  SCENE: *A rock in the midst of the North Sea,*
|  *whereon the three kings, bound naked by conquering*
|  *sea-rovers, have been left to perish.*

|  VOICE OF THE DAWN-WIND: Awaken, O sea, from thy starry dream;
|  Awaken, awaken!
|  For delight of thy slumber not one pale gleam
|  From dim star-clusters remaineth unshaken.
|  All night I have haunted the valleys and rivers;
|  Now hither I come--
|  Ere, quickened with sunlight, the drowsy east quivers--
|  To waken thy song, night-bewildered and dumb;
|  To stir thy grey waters, of starlight forsaken,
|  To loosen white foam in the red of the dawn.

|  WAVE-VOICES: The sound of thy voice
|  Has broken our sleep;
|  All night we have waited thee, herald of light.
|  We arise, we rejoice
|  At thy bidding to leap,
|  And spray with our laughter the trail of the night.
|  All night we have waited thee, weary of stars--
|  The little star-dreams, and the sleep without song;
|  The deep-brooding slumber of silence that holds
|  Our melody mute in the uttermost deep.
|  O Wind of the Dawn, we have waited thee long;
|  The sound of thy voice
|  Has broken our sleep;
|  We arise, we rejoice
|  At thy bidding to leap,
|  With a tumult of singing, a rapture of spray,
|  To scatter our joy in the path of the day.

|  GARLAND: Day comes at last, beyond the sea's grey rim;
|  The young sun leaps in sudden might of gold.

|  ASHALORN: Before his fire our lives will smoulder dim;
|  Like stars we shine, we fade; the tale is told,
|  And all our empty splendour put to scorn;
|  Fate leaves us, who were clothed in pride, forlorn,
|  To perish, naked, in this lonely sea.
|  But yesterday we ruled as kings of earth;
|  Frail men to-day; to-morrow, who shall be?

|  ARLO: But yesterday my cup of life was filled
|  To overflowing with the wine of mirth--
|  The plashing joy from fruitful years distilled.

|  GARLAND: But yesterday my kinghood sprang to birth;
|  My fingers scarce had grasped the might new-born,
|  When from my clutch the glittering pomp was torn.

|  SEA-VOICES: They slumber, they slumber, the kings in their pride.
|  The beak of the Rover is dipt in the tide;
|  The sails of the Rover are red in the wind;
|  And white is the trail of the foam flung behind.
|  They have fallen, have fallen, the kings in their pride;
|  Their sea-gates are forced by the rush of the tide;
|  Their splendour is scattered as surf on the wind;
|  And red is the trail of the terror behind.

|  Forsaken, forlorn,
|  On a rock of the sea,
|  In anguish they bow,
|  And wait for the night and the darkness to be;
|  Oh, bright was the gold in their hair;
|  The sea-weed, in scorn,
|  Is twined in it now;
|  Oh, rich was their raiment and rare,
|  Blue, purple, and gold,
|  In fold upon fold;
|  Of glory and majesty shorn,
|  They are clothed with the wind of despair.

|  GARLAND: Lo, the live waters run to greet the day:
|  Even so I laughed to see the soaring light;
|  My life was poised like yonder curving wave
|  To break in such bright revel of keen spray.

|  ARLO: I counted not the years that took their flight,
|  Gold-crowned and singing; every hour I stood,
|  As one enchanted in an April wood,
|  In some new paradise of scent and flowers.
|  I counted not the countless, careless hours,
|  The days of rapture and the nights of peace.
|  How should I dream that such delight could pass,
|  Such colour fade, such flowing numbers cease,
|  My glory perish where was none to save,
|  And all my strength be trodden in the grass?

|  ASHALORN: Oh, blest art thou who diest in thy youth;
|  Oh, blest art thou who failest in thy prime;
|  While yet thine eyes are full of wondering truth;
|  Ere yet thy feet have found the ways of thorn.
|  Too long I wandered down the vale of time,
|  A lonely wind, all songless and forlorn;
|  For I have found the empty heart of things,
|  The secret sorrow of the summer rose,
|  And all the sadness of the April green;
|  I know that every happy stream that springs
|  Into a sea of bitter memories flows;
|  I know the curse that God has set on kings--
|  The solitary splendour and the crown
|  Of desolation, and the prisoning state;
|  The heart that yearns beneath the robe of gold,
|  The soul that starves behind the golden gate.
|  I know how chance has reared our earthly thrones
|  Upon a shifting wrack of whitened bones,
|  Of heroes fallen in the wars of old--
|  By wind upbuilded and by wind cast down.

|  SEA-VOICES: As foam on the edge of the waters of night,
|  They flicker and fall;
|  More brief than delight,
|  More frail than their tears,
|  They flicker and fall
|  In the tide of the years;
|  Awhile they may triumph, as lords of the earth,
|  With feasting and mirth,
|  Yet the winds and the waters shall sweep over all.

|  VOICE OF THE WEST WIND: O wide-shifting wonder of sapphire and gold,
|  O wandering glory of emerald and white,
|  From the purple and green of the moorlands I come,
|  To sweep o'er thy waters with turbulent flight,
|  To sway thee, and swing thee abroad in my might;
|  I lean to thy lips, to their white, curling foam,
|  With laughter and kisses, to smite it to spray;
|  To thine uttermost deep, unlitten and cold,
|  I thrill thee with rapture, then wander away.

|  I have drunk the red wine of the heather, and swept
|  Over moorland and fell, for mile upon mile.
|  The little blue loughs were merry, and leapt,
|  With a shaking of laughter, in dim, dreaming hollows;
|  The little blue loughs were merry, and flung
|  Their spray on my wings as above them I swung;
|  I laughed to their laughter, and dallied awhile;
|  Then left them to sink in the silence that follows.

|  In the forest I stirred, like the chant of thy tides,
|  The song of the boughs and the branches a-swinging;
|  The ashes and beeches and oak-trees were singing,
|  Like the noise of thy waters when dark tempest rides.
|  I swung on the crest of the pine-trees a-swaying,
|  As now on thy green, flowing surges, O sea;
|  I piped in my triumph, they danced to my playing;
|  I left them a-murmur, to hasten to thee.

|  The white clouds were driven like ships through the air,
|  And grey flowed the shadows o'er sea-coloured bent,
|  And dark on the heathland, and dark on the wold:
|  But here on thy waters, where all things grow fair,
|  They shadow with purple thine emerald and gold.
|  My revel unbroken, my rapture unspent,
|  To thy far-shining wonder, O sea, I have come,
|  To sweep o'er thy splendour with turbulent flight;
|  To sway thee, and swing thee abroad in my might;
|  I lean to thy lips, to their white, curling foam,
|  With laughter and kisses, to smite it to spray;
|  To thine uttermost deep, unlitten and cold,
|  I thrill thee with rapture, then wander away.

|  GARLAND: There is no sadness in the world but death.
|  The years that whitened o'er thy head have taken
|  The colour from thy life, but still in me
|  The blood beats young and red; yea, still my breath
|  Is full of freshness as the wind that blows
|  Across the morning-fells when night has shaken
|  His cooling dews among the wakening heath.
|  Yea, now the wind that lashes o'er the sea
|  Stings all my quivering body to keen life
|  And whips the blood into my straining limbs;
|  And all the youth within me springs to fire;
|  I am consumed with ravening desire
|  For one brief, wild, delirious hour of strife;
|  I yearn for every joy that flies or swims,
|  Rides on the wind or with the water flows.
|  Yet I must die by patient, slow degrees,
|  With hourly wasting flesh and parching blood;
|  Ah God, that I might leap into the flood,
|  And perish struggling in the adventurous seas!

|  ARLO: My mouth is filled with saltness, and I thirst
|  For forest-pools that bubble in the shade,
|  When loud the hot chase pants through every glade,
|  And fleeing fawns from every thicket burst;
|  Or clear wine vintaged when the world was young,
|  Gurgling from deep-mouthed jars of coloured stone.

|  ASHALORN: The noonday burns my body to the bone,
|  And sets a coal of fire upon my tongue,
|  Between my lips, and stifles all my breath.
|  Oh come, thou only joy undying, death!

|  WAVE-VOICES: O wind, that failing, failing, failing, dies,
|  Beneath the heat of August-laden skies,
|  Sinking in sleep, sinking in quiet sleep--
|  Thy blue wings folded o'er our dreaming deep

|  We too are weary, weary in the noon;
|  We too will fall in shining slumber soon--
|  Foamless and still, foamless and very still,
|  Unstirred, unshaken by thy restless will.

|  Yet there are eyes that cannot, cannot close,
|  And strong souls racked by fiery, rending woes--
|  Never to rest, never to gather rest
|  By any stream of murmuring waters blest.

|  But slumber falling, falling, on us lies,
|  Silent and deep, beneath noon-laden skies,
|  Silent and deep, silent and very deep,
|  With blue wings folded o'er our dreaming sleep.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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|  VOICE OF THE EVENING WIND: I have shaken the noon
|        from my wings, I arise
|  To quicken the flame in the western skies--
|  To blow the clouds to a streaming flame,
|  Where the red sun sinks in the opal sea,
|  And red as the heart of the opal glows
|  His last wild gleam in the waters grey.
|  O grey-green waters, curling to rose,
|  The kings are glad of the dying day;
|  The kings are weary; the white mists close--
|  The white mists gather to cover their shame.

|  ASHALORN: The evening mist is dank upon my brow,
|  And cold upon my lips--yea, cold as death;
|  Yet, through the gloom, she gazes on me now,
|  As in our early-wedded days; her breath
|  Is warm once more upon my withered cheek.
|  O gaunt, grey lips, that strive but may not speak;
|  O cold, grey eyes, that flicker in the gloam--
|  Long have we strayed; come, let us wander home!

|  ARLO: Like lit September woodlands, streameth down
|  Her hair, beneath the circle of her crown;
|  Of rarer, redder glory than the cold
|  Dead metal that for ever strives to hold
|  The ever-straying wonder of live gold!
|  Like woodland pools, her eyes, a dreaming brown--
|  Like woodland pools where autumn-splendours drown!
|  O red-gold tresses, shaking in the gloam,
|  Unto your light, unto your shade I come!

|  GARLAND: Her eyes are azure as the wind-blown sea,
|  With deep sea-shadowings of grey and green;
|  And like an April storm her shining hair--
|  Yea, all the glittering Aprils that have been,
|  And all the wondering Aprils yet to be,
|  Have stored their wealth of shower and sunshine there;
|  Yea, all the thousand, thousand springs of earth
|  New-lit and re-awakened at her birth,
|  In her sweet body glow and glimmer fair.
|  O wonder of sea-colours and white foam
|  And April glories, to thine arms I come!

|  VOICE OF THE EVENING WIND: The sun is gone,
|        and the last, red flame
|  Has faded away in a shimmer of rose--
|  A shimmer of rose that shivers to grey.
|  The kings are glad of the dying day--
|  The kings are weary; the white mists close,
|  The white mists gather to cover their shame.





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.. _`THE SONGS OF QUEEN AVERLAINE`:

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   THE SONGS OF QUEEN AVERLAINE.

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   To M. B.

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|  PERSONS: THE KING,
|           QUEEN AVERLAINE,
|           THE KNIGHT ARKELD.

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   I\.
   KING AND QUEEN.

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   1\.

|  The day has come; at last my dream unfolds
|    White, wondering petals with the rising sun.
|  No other glade in Love's world-garden holds
|    So fair a bloom from vanquished winter won.

|  Long, oh, so long I watched through budding hours,
|    And, trembling, feared my dream would never wake;
|  As, one by one, I saw star-tranced flowers
|    Out on the night their dewy splendour shake.

|  But with the earliest gleam of dawn it stirred,
|    Knowing that Love had put the dark to flight;
|  And I must sing more glad than any bird
|    Because the sun has filled my dream with light.



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   2\.

|  Is it high noon, already, in the land?
|  O Love, I dreamed that morn could never pass;
|  That we might ever wander, hand in hand,
|  As children in June-meadows plucking flowers,
|  Through ever-waking, fresh-unfolding hours:
|  Yet now we sink love-wearied in the grass;
|  Yea, it is noon, high noon in all the land.

|  The young wind slumbers; all the little birds
|  That sang about us in the fields of morn
|  Are songless now; no happy flight of words
|  On Love's lip hovers--Love has waxed to noon.
|  Ah, God, if Love should wane to evening soon
|  To perish in a sunless world, forlorn,
|  And cease with the last song of weary birds!



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   3\.

|  At dawn I gathered flowers of white,
|  To garland them for your delight.

|  At noon I gathered flowers of blue,
|  To weave them into joy for you.

|  At eve I gather purple flowers,
|  To strew above the withered hours.



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   4\.

|  She knelt at eve beside the stream,
|  And, sighing, sang: "O waters clear,
|  Forsaken now of joy and fear,
|  I come to drown a withered dream.

|  "Unseen of day, I let it fall
|  Within the shadow of my hair.
|  O little dream, that bloomed so fair,
|  The waters hide you after all!"



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   5\.

|  "Is it not dawn?" she cried, and raised her head,
|  "Or hath the sun, grey-shrouded, yesternight,
|  Gone down with Love for ever to the dead?
|  When Love has perished, can there yet be light?"

|  "Yea, it is dawn," one answered: "see the dew
|  Quivers agleam, and all the east is white;
|  While in the willow song begins anew."
|  "When Love has perished, can there yet be light?"




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   II\.
   AVERLAINE AND ARKELD.

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   1\.

|  ARKELD: Oh, why did you lift your eyes to mine?
|  Oh, why did you lift your drooping head?

|  AVERLAINE: The tangled threads of the fates entwine
|  Our hearts that follow as children led.

|  ARKELD: From the utmost ends of the earth we came,
|  As star moves starward through wildering night.

|  AVERLAINE: Our souls have mingled as flame with flame,
|  Yea, they have mingled as light with light.

|  ARKELD: Ah God, ah God, that it never had been!

|  AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow that falls between!

|  ARKELD: The stars in their courses move through the sky
|  Unswerving, unheeding, cold and blind.

|  AVERLAINE: Why did you linger nor pass me by
|  Where the cross-roads meet in the ways that wind?

|  ARKELD: I saw your eyes from the dusk of your hair
|  Flame out with sorrow and yearning love.

|  AVERLAINE: And I, who wandered with grey despair,
|  Looking up, saw heaven in blossom above.

|  ARKELD: Ah God, ah God, that it never had been!

|  AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow that falls between!

|  ARKELD: May we not go as we came, alone,
|  Unto the ends of the earth anew?

|  AVERLAINE: May we draw afresh from the rose new-blown
|  The golden sunlight, the crystal dew?

|  ARKELD: Yea, love between us has bloomed as a rose
|  Out of the desert under our feet.

|  AVERLAINE: May we forget how the red heart glows,
|  Forget that the dew on the petals is sweet?

|  ARKELD: Ah God, ah God, that it never had been!

|  AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow that falls between!

|  ARKELD: Have the ages brought us together that we
|  Might tremble, start at shadows, and cry?

|  AVERLAINE: Yea, it has been, and ever will be
|  Till Sorrow be slain or Love's self die.

|  ARKELD: Stronger than Sorrow is Love; and Hate,
|  The brother of Love, shall end our Sorrow.

|  AVERLAINE: The Shadow is strong with the strength of Fate,
|  And, slain, would rise from the grave to-morrow.

|  ARKELD: Ah God, ah God, that it never had been!

|  AVERLAINE: The Shadow, the Shadow for ever between!



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   2\.

|  AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, and tear with ruthless hands
|  The golden web wherein, too late, Love strove
|  To weave us joy and bind us heart to heart.

|  ARKELD: Yea, we must part, and strew on desert-sands
|  Petal by petal all the rose of Love,
|  And part for ever where the cross-ways part.

|  AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, and never turn our eyes
|  From strange horizons, desolate and far,
|  Though Love cry ever: "Turn but once, sad heart!"

|  ARKELD: Yea, we must part, and under alien skies
|  Must follow after some cold, gleaming star,
|  And roam, as north and south winds roam, apart.

|  AVERLAINE: Yea, we must part, ere Love be grown too strong
|  And we too helpless to resist his might;
|  While each may go with pure, unshamed heart.

|  ARKELD: Yea, we must part; and though we do Love wrong,
|  He will the more subdue us in our flight,
|  And hold us each more surely his, apart.




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   III\.
   QUEEN AVERLAINE.



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   1\.

|  O love, I bade you go; and you have borne
|  The summer with you from the valley-lands;
|  The poppy-flame has perished from the corn;
|  And in the chill, wan light of early morn
|  The reapers come in doleful, starveling bands,
|  To bind the blackened sheaves with listless hands;
|  For rain has put their sowing-toil to scorn.

|  O Love, I bade you go; and autumn brings
|  Bleak desolation; yet within my heart
|  Unquenched and fierce the flame you kindled springs;
|  For, echoing all day long, the courtyard rings
|  As loud it rang when, rending Love apart,
|  Your white horse cantered--swift and keen to start--
|  Into a world of other queens and kings.



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   2\.

|  I bade you go; ah, wherefore are you gone?
|  How could you leave me dark and desolate,
|  O Sun of Love, that for brief summer shone?
|  Mine eyes are ever on the western gate,
|  Half-wishing, half-foredreading your return.
|  Return, O Love, return!

|  I cannot live without you; through the dark
|  I stretch blind hands to you across the world;
|  All day on unknown battle-fields I mark
|  Your sword's red course, your banner blue unfurled;
|  Yet never, in my day-dreams, you return.
|  Return, O Love, return!

|  Nay, you are gone: O Love, I bade you go.
|  I would not have you come again to be
|  A stranger in this house of silent woe,
|  Where, being all, you would be naught to me.
|  Mine, mine in dreams, but lost if you return;
|  Oh, nevermore return!



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   3\.

|  "To-day a wandering harper came
|  With outland tales of deeds of fame;
|  I hearkened from the noonday bright
|  Until the failing of the light,
|  The while he sang of joust and fight;
|  Yet never once I caught your name.

|  Oh, whither, whither are you gone,
|  Whose name victorious ever shone
|  Above all knights of other lands?
|  Across what wilderness of sands?
|  By what dead sea-deserted strands?
|  On what far quest of Love forlorn?

|  I loved you when men called you Lord
|  Arkeld, the never-sleeping sword;
|  Yet now, when all your might is furled,
|  And you no longer crest the world,
|  More are you mine than when you hurled
|  Destruction on the embattled horde.



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   4\.

|  Oh, deeper in the silent house
|    The silence falls;
|  Only the stir of bat or mouse
|    About the walls.

|  No cry, no voice in any room,
|    No gust of breath;
|  As if, within the clutch of doom,
|    We waited death.



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   5\.

|  The King is dead;
|    No longer now
|  The cold eyes gleam
|    Beneath his brow.

|  O cold, grey eyes,
|    Wherein the light
|  Of Love at dawn
|    Seemed clear and bright,

|  No true Love burned
|    Your cold desire,
|  Which mirrored but
|    My own heart's fire.



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   6\.

|  The King died yesterday....  Ah, no, he died
|    When young Love perished long, so long ago;
|  And on his throne, as marble at my side,
|    Has reigned a carven image, cold as snow,
|  Though all men bowed before it, crying: "King!"

|  Too late, too late the chains which held me fall;
|    Rock-bound, I bade the victor-knight go by;
|  And now, when time has loosed me from the thrall,
|    I know not where he tarries, 'neath what sky
|  He waits the winter's end, the dawn of spring.



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   7\.

|  Spring comes no more for me: though young March blow
|  To flame the larches, and from tree to tree
|  The green fire leap, till all the woodlands glow--
|  Though every runnel, filled to overflow,
|  Bear sea-ward, loud and brown with melted snow,
|  Spring comes no more for me!

|  Spring comes no more for me: though April light
|  The flame of gorse above the peacock sea;
|  Though in an interweaving mesh of white
|  The seagulls hover 'neath the cliff's sheer height;
|  Though, hour by hour, new joys are winged for flight,
|  Spring comes no more for me!

|  Spring comes no more for me: though May will shake
|  White flame of hawthorn over all the lea,
|  Till every thick-set hedge and tangled brake
|  Puts on fresh flower of beauty for her sake;
|  Though all the world from winter-sleep awake,
|  Spring comes no more for me!



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   8\.

|  I wandered through the city till I came
|    Within the vast cathedral, cool and dim;
|  I looked upon the windows all aflame
|    With blazoned knights and saints and seraphim.

|  I looked on kings in purple, gold and blue,
|    On martyrs high before whom all men bow;
|  Until a gleam of light my footsteps drew
|    Before a shining seraph, on whose brow

|  A little flame, for ever pure and white,
|    Unwavering burns--the symbol of our love;
|  And as I knelt before him in the night,
|    He looked, compassionate, on me from above.



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   9\.

|  I heard a harper 'neath the castle walls
|  Sing, for night-shelter in the house of thralls,
|  A song of hapless lovers; in the shade
|  I paused awhile, unseen of man or maid.

|  Taking his harp, he touched the moaning strings,
|  And sang of queens unloved and loveless kings;
|  His song shot through my fluttering heart like flame
|  Till, wondering, I heard him breathe your name.

|  Oh, then I knew how all the deathless wrong
|  Time wrought of old is but a harper's song;
|  And all the hopeless sorrow of long years
|  An idle tale to win a stranger's tears.

|  Yea, in the song of Love's immortal dead
|  Our love was told; with shuddering heart I fled,
|  And strove to pass upon my way unseen,
|  But song was hushed with whispers: "Lo, the Queen!"



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   10\.

|  Was it for this we loved, O Time, to be
|  Among Love's deathless through eternity,
|  Set high on lone, divided peaks above
|  The sheltered summer-valley, broad and green?
|  Was it for this our joy and grief have been,
|  Our barren day-dreams, dream-deserted nights--
|  That valley-lovers, looking up, might see
|  How vain is Love among the starry heights,
|  And, loving, sigh: "How vain a thing is Love!"?

|  O Love, that we had found thee in the shade
|  Where, all day long, the deep, leaf-hidden glade
|  Hears but the moan of some forsaken dove,
|  Or the clear song of happy, nameless streams;
|  Where, all night long, the August moonlight gleams
|  Through warm, green dusk, no longer cold and white!
|  O Love, that we had found thee, unafraid,
|  One summer morn, and followed thee till night,
|  As unknown valley-lovers follow Love!



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   11\.

|  I have grown old, awaiting spring's return,
|    And, now spring comes, I stand like winter grey
|  In a young world; yet warm within me burn
|    The morning-fires Love kindled in youth's day.

|  I have grown old; the young folk look on me
|    With sighs, and wonder that I once was fair,
|  And whisper one another: "Is this she?
|    Did summer ever light that winter hair?

|  "Ah, she is old; yet, she, too, once was young:
|    Yea, loved as we love even, for men tell
|  How bright her beauty burned on every tongue,
|    And how a knightly stranger loved her well.

|  "Yet Love grows old that beats so young and warm;
|    His leaping fires in dust and ashes fail;
|  Shall we, too, wither in the winter-storm,
|    And wander thus one April, old and frail?"

|  Love grows not old, O lovers, though youth die,
|    And bodily beauty perish as the flower;
|  Though all things fail, though spring and summer fly,
|    Love's fire burns quenchless till the last dark hour.



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   12\.

|  O valley-lovers, think you love,
|  Being all of joy, knows naught of sorrow?
|  A day, a night
|  Of swift delight
|  That fears no dread, grey-dawning morrow?

|  O valley-lovers, think you love
|  Knows only laughter, naught of weeping?
|  A rose-red fire
|  Of warm desire
|  For ever burning, never sleeping?

|  O lovers, little know ye Love.
|  Love is a flame that feeds on sorrow--
|  A lone star bright
|  Through endless night
|  That waits a never-dawning morrow.



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   13\.

|  "Thus would I sing of life,
|  Ere I must yield my breath:
|  Though broken in the strife,
|  I sought not after death.
|  Though ruthless years have scourged
|  My soul with sorrow's brands,
|  And, day by day, have urged
|  My feet o'er desert-sands;
|  Yet would I rather tread
|  Again the bitter trail,
|  Than lie, calm-browed and pale,
|  Among the loveless dead.

|  No pang would I forego,
|  No stab of suffering,
|  No agony of woe,
|  If I to life might cling;
|  If I might follow still,
|  For evermore, afar,
|  O'er barren dale and hill,
|  My Love's unfading star.
|  Yea, now, with failing breath,
|  Thus would I sing of life:
|  Though broken in the strife,
|  I sought not after death.



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   14\.

|  Darkness has come upon me in the end;
|  Darkness has come upon me like a friend,
|  Yet undesired; why comest thou, O night,
|  To seal mine eyes for ever from the light?

|  Darkness has come upon me; yet a star
|  Burns through the night and beckons me from far.
|  Look up, O eyes, unfaltering, without fear;
|  O morning-star of Love, the dawn is near!





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.. _`THE GOLDEN HELM`:

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   THE GOLDEN HELM.

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   The Golden Helm

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   I\.

|  Across his stripling shoulders Geoffrey felt
|  The knighting-sword fall lightly, and he heard
|  The King's voice bid him rise; and at the word
|  He rose, new-flushed with knighthood, swiftly grown
|  To sudden manhood, though, but now, he knelt
|  A vigil-wearied squire before the throne.
|  He paused one moment while the people turned
|  To look on him with eyes that kindled bright,
|  Seeing his face aglow with strange, new light;
|  Yet them he saw not where they watched amazed,
|  And, though like azure flames Queen Hild's eyes burned,
|  Beyond the shadow of the throne he gazed
|  To where, in kindred rapture, young Christine
|  Stood, tremulous and white, in wind-flower grace--
|  Beneath her thick, dark hair, her happy face
|  Pale-gleaming 'midst the ruddy maiden-throng;
|  But, following Geoffrey's eyes, the trembling Queen
|  Now bade the harpers rouse the air with song:
|  From pulsing throat and silver-throbbing string
|  The music soared, light-winged, and, fluttering, fell;
|  When, startled as one waking from a spell,
|  Geoffrey stepped back among the waiting knights;
|  While knelt another squire before the King.
|  In Queen Hild's eyes yet hovered stormy lights,
|  Beneath her glooming brows, as waters gleam
|  Under snow-laden skies; the summer day
|  For her in that brief glance had shivered grey,
|  Empty of light and song.  She only heard
|  The King and knights as people of a dream;
|  Yet keenly Geoffrey's lightest, laughing word
|  Stung to the quick, and stabbed her quivering life,
|  Till from each shuddering wound the red joy flowed;
|  And, though a ruddy fire on each cheek glowed,
|  She felt her drainèd heart within her cold;
|  Then all at once a hot thought stirred new strife
|  Within her breast, and suddenly grown old
|  And wise in treacherous imagining,
|  She pressed her thin lips to a bitter smile,
|  And strove with laughing mask to hide the guile
|  That, slowly welling, through her body poured
|  Cold-blooded life that feels no arrowy sting
|  Of joy or hope, nor thrust of pity's sword.
|  To Christine, where she yet enraptured stood,
|  Hild, turning, spake kind words, and coldly praised
|  The new-made knight.  Each word Christine amazed
|  Drank in with joyous heart and eager ears;
|  To her it seemed ne'er lived a Queen so good;
|  And love's swift rapture filled her eyes with tears.
|  For her true heart, the day-long pageant moved
|  Round Geoffrey's shining presence; king and knight
|  But shone for her with pale, reflected light.
|  As trancèd planets circling round the sun,
|  About the radiant head of her beloved
|  The dim throngs moved until the day was done.
|  When lucent gold suffused the cloudless west,
|  And lingering thrush-notes failed in drowsy song,
|  She left, at last, the weary maiden-throng,
|  To stray alone through dew-hung garden-glades;
|  And all the love unsealed within her breast
|  Flowed out from her to light the darkest shades.
|  Her quivering maiden-body could not hold
|  The sudden welling of love's loosened flood;
|  Through all her limbs it gushed, and in her blood
|  It stormed each throbbing pulse with blissful ache;
|  It seemed to spray the utmost glooms with gold,
|  And scatter glistening dews in every brake.
|  While yet she moved in rapture unafraid
|  Among the lilies, down the Grey Nun's Walk,
|  She heard behind the snapping of a stalk,
|  And stayed transfixed, nor dared to turn her head,
|  But stood a solitary, trembling maid--
|  Forlorn and frail, with all her courage fled.
|  Thus Geoffrey found her as, hot-foot, he pressed
|  To pour about her all the glowing tide
|  Day-pent within his heart; the flood-gates wide,
|  His love swept over her, sea after sea,
|  Until life almost swooned within her breast,
|  And she seemed like to drown in ecstasy.
|  Yet, as the tempest sank in calm at last,
|  She rose from out the foam of love, new-born--
|  As Venus from the irised surf of morn--
|  To such triumphant beauty, Geoffrey, thralled,
|  Before her stood in wonder rooted fast;
|  Even his love within him bowed appalled
|  In tongueless worship as he gazed on her;
|  While, lily-like, the trancèd flowers among,
|  She stood, love-radiant, and above her hung
|  The canopy of star-enkindling night;
|  Though, when again she moved with joyous stir,
|  He sprang to her in love's unchallenged might.



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   II\.

|  All night, beside her slumbering lord, the Queen
|  Tossed sleepless--every aching sense astrain
|  With tingling wakefulness that racked like pain
|  Her weary limbs; all night, in wide-eyed dread,
|  She watched the slow hours moving dark between
|  The glimmering window and the curtained bed.
|  The fitful calling of the owl, all night,
|  Struck like the voice of terror on her ears;
|  With brushing wings, about her taloned fears
|  Fluttered till dawn: when, as the summer gloom,
|  Grey-quivering, spilt in silver-showering light,
|  She rose and stood within the dawning room,
|  Shivering and pale--her long, unbraided hair
|  Each moment quickening to a livelier gold
|  About her snowy shoulders; yet, more cold
|  Than the still gleam of winter-frozen meres,
|  Her blue eyes shone with strange, unseeing stare,
|  As though they sought to pierce some mist of fears;
|  And, when she turned, the old familiar things
|  Unknown and alien seemed to her sight--
|  Outworn and faded in the morning light
|  The rose-embroidered tapestries, and frail
|  The painted Love that hung on irised wings
|  Above the sleeping King.  Dark-browed and pale
|  She looked upon her lord, and fresh despair
|  With dreadful calm through all her being stole,
|  And froze with icy breath the flickering soul
|  That strove within her.  Evil courage steeled
|  Her heart once more, as, combing back her hair,
|  She watched the waking world of wood and field:
|  Hay-harvesters with long scythes flashing white;
|  The dewy-browsing deer; the blue smoke-curl
|  Above some woodland hut; a kerchiefed girl
|  Driving the kine afield with loitering pace.
|  But, as a youthful rider came in sight,
|  She from the casement turned with darkening face,
|  And looked not out again, and fiercely pressed
|  Her white teeth in her quivering underlip,
|  To stifle the wild cry that strove to slip
|  From her strained throat; with clutching hands she sought
|  To stay the throbbing tumult of her breast
|  That fluttered like a bird in meshes caught.

|  Christine as yet in dreamless slumber lay
|  Within her turret-chamber; but a bird
|  Within the laurel singing softly stirred
|  Her eyes to wakeful life, and from her bed
|  She rose and stood within the light of day,
|  White-faced and wondering, with lifted head.
|  As April-butterflies, new-winged for flight,
|  That poise awhile in quivering amaze,
|  Ere they may dare the unknown, glittering ways
|  Of perilous airs--upon the brink of morn
|  She paused one moment in the showering light,
|  In radiant ecstasy of youth forlorn.
|  Then swift remembrance flushed her virgin snow,
|  And wakened in her eyes the living fire;
|  With joyous haste she drew her bright attire
|  About her trembling limbs, with eager hands,
|  Veiling her maiden beauty's morning glow,
|  Before she looked abroad on meadowlands,
|  Where Geoffrey rode at dawn.  Across the blaze
|  Of dandelions silvering to seed,
|  She saw his white horse swing with easy speed;
|  He rode with head exultant in the breeze
|  That lifted his brown hair.  With lingering gaze
|  She watched him vanish down an aisle of trees;
|  Then, swiftly gathering her dark hair in braids
|  Above her slender neck, she crossed the floor
|  With noiseless step, unlatched the creaking door,
|  And stole in trembling silence down the stair,
|  Intent to reach the garden ere the maids
|  Should come with chattering tongues and laughter there;
|  When by her side she heard a rustling stir:
|  The arras parted, and before her stood
|  Queen Hild in proud, imperious womanhood,
|  Looking upon her with cold, smiling eyes.
|  In startled wonder Christine glanced at her.
|  Then spake the Queen: "Do maids thus early rise
|  To tend their household duties, or to feed
|  The doves, relinquishing sleep's precious hours
|  To see the morning dew upon the flowers
|  And what frail blooms have perished 'neath the moon?
|  To reach the Grey Nun's Walk, mayhap you speed--
|  To count the stricken buds of lilies strewn
|  O'ernight upon the soil by careless feet
|  That wandered there so late?  Yea, now I know,
|  Christine, because you flush and tremble so.
|  Yet look you not on me with eyes that burn;
|  I would not stay you when you go to greet
|  The rider of the dawn on his return.
|  Think you I leave my bed at break of day--
|  I, Hild the Queen--to thwart a lover's kiss?
|  Think you my love of you could stoop to this,
|  Though you would wed a fledgling, deedless Knight?
|  Nay, shrink you not from me, turn not away;
|  Because my heart has never known love's light,
|  I fain would hear your happy tale of love,
|  That I may prosper you and your fair youth.
|  Will you not trust me?"  Blind with love's glad truth,
|  Christine sank down within Hild's outstretched arms.
|  Speechless, awhile, with sobbing breath she strove;
|  Then poured out all the tale of love's alarms,
|  Raptures, despairs, and deathless ecstasies,
|  In one quick torrent from her brimming heart;
|  Then, quaking, ceased, and drew herself apart,
|  Dismayed that she so easily had revealed
|  To this white, cold-eyed Queen love's sanctities.
|  Yet Hild moved not, but stood, with hard lips sealed,
|  Until, the chiming of the turret-bell
|  Recalling her, she spake with far-off voice:
|  "I, loveless, in your innocent love rejoice.
|  May nothing stem its eager raptured course!
|  Oh, that my barren heart could love so well,
|  And feel the surge of love's subduing force!
|  Yet even I from out my dearth may give
|  To you, Christine.  Would you that Geoffrey's name
|  Shall shine, unchallenged, on the lists of fame?
|  If you would have him win for you the crown
|  Of knightly immortality, and live
|  Triumphant on men's tongues in high renown,
|  Follow me now."  With cold, exulting eyes
|  She raised the arras, opening to the light
|  An unknown stair-way clambering into night.
|  Within the caverned wall she swiftly passed.
|  Christine for one brief moment in surprise
|  Uncertain paused; then, wondering, followed fast.
|  The falling arras shutting out the day,
|  She stumbled blindly through the soaring gloom--
|  Enclosing dank and chilly as the tomb
|  Her panting life; and unto her it seemed
|  That ever, as she climbed, more sheer the way
|  Before her rose, and ever fainter gleamed
|  The wan, white star of light that overhead
|  Hovered remote.  Far up the stair she heard
|  A silken rustling as, without a word,
|  Relentlessly Queen Hild before her sped
|  For ever up the ever-soaring steep.
|  But when it almost seemed that she must fall--
|  So loudly in her ears the pulses beat,
|  And each step seemed to sink beneath her feet--
|  She heard the shrilly grating of a key,
|  And saw, above her, in the unseen wall,
|  A dazzling square of day break suddenly.
|  Within the lighted doorway Queen Hild turned
|  To reach a helping hand, and, as she bent
|  To clutch the swooning maiden, well-nigh spent,
|  And drew her to the chamber, weak and faint,
|  Through her gold hair so rare a lustre burned,
|  It seemed to Christine that an aureoled saint
|  Leaned out from heaven to snatch her from the deep.
|  Then, dizzily, she sank upon the floor,
|  Dreaming that toil was over evermore,
|  And she secure in Love's celestial fold;
|  Till, waking gradually as from a sleep,
|  Her dark eyes opened on a blaze of gold.
|  She sat within a chamber hung around
|  With glistering tapestry, whereon a knight,
|  Who bore a golden helm above the fight,
|  For ever triumphed o'er assailing swords,
|  Or led the greenwood chase with horse and hound,
|  While far behind him lagged the dames and lords
|  And all the hunting train; till he, at length,
|  Brought low the antlered quarry on the brink
|  Of some deep, craggy cleft, wherefrom did shrink
|  The quailing hounds with lathered flanks aquake.
|  As Christine looked on them, her maiden-strength
|  Returned to her; and now, more broad awake,
|  She saw, within the centre of the room,
|  A golden table whereon glittered bright
|  A casket of wrought gold, and, in the light,
|  Queen Hild, awaiting her, with smiling lips,
|  And laughing words: "Is this then love's sad doom,
|  To perish, fainting, in light's brief eclipse
|  Between a curtain and a closed door?
|  Shall this bright casket ever hold, unsought,
|  The golden helm--in elfin-ages wrought
|  For some star-destined knight--because love's heart
|  Grows faint within her?  Shall the world no more
|  Acclaim its helmèd lord?"  But, with a start,
|  Christine arose, and swiftly forward came
|  With eager eyes, and stooped with fluttering breast--
|  Her slender, shapely hands together pressed
|  In tense expectancy, and all her face
|  With quivering light of wondering love aflame.
|  The Queen bent down, and in a breathing space
|  Unlocked the casket with a golden key,
|  And deftly loosed a little golden pin;
|  The heavy lid swung open and, within,
|  To Christine's eyes revealed the golden helm.
|  Then spake Queen Hild, once more: "Your love-gift see!
|  Think you that any smith in all the realm
|  Can beat dull metal to so fair a casque?
|  In jewelled caverns of enchantment old
|  This helm was wrought of magic-tempered gold
|  To yieldless strength, by elfin-hammers chased,
|  That toiled unwearied at their age-long task,
|  And over it an unknown legend traced
|  In letters of some world-forgotten tongue.
|  At noon, with careful footing, down the stair
|  Unto the hall the casket you must bear,
|  When King and knight are gathered round the board,
|  And, ere the tales be told or songs be sung,
|  Acclaim your love the golden-helmed lord."
|  Christine, awhile, in speechless wonderment,
|  Hung o'er the glistering helm, and silence fell
|  Within the arrased chamber like a spell;
|  While softly, on some distant, sunlit roof,
|  The basking pigeons cooed with deep content;
|  Till, far below, a sudden-clanging hoof
|  Startled the morn.  The women's lifted eyes
|  One moment met in kindred ecstasy;
|  Then Hild, with hopeless shudder, shaking free,
|  With strained voice spake: "Why do you longer wait?
|  Your love returns; shall he, in sad surprise,
|  Find no glad face to greet him at the gate?"



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   III\.

|  As some new jest was tossed from tongue to tongue,
|  Light laughter rippled round the midday board,
|  Beneath the bannered rafters: dame and lord
|  And maid and squire with merry chattering
|  Sat feasting; though no motley humour wrung
|  A smile from Hild, where she, beside the King,
|  Watched pale and still.  She saw on Geoffrey's face
|  Grave wonder that he caught not anywhere
|  Among the maids the dusk of Christine's hair,
|  Or sunlight of her glance.  His eyes, between
|  The curtained doorway and her empty place,
|  Kept eager, anxious vigil for Christine.
|  But when, at last, the lingering meal nigh o'er,
|  The waking harp-notes trembled through the hush,
|  Like the light, fitful prelude of the thrush
|  Ere his full song enchant the domèd elm;
|  The arras parting, through the open door
|  She came.  Before her borne, the golden helm
|  Within the dim-lit hall shone out so bright,
|  That lord and dame in rustling wonder rose,
|  And squire and maiden sought to gather close,
|  With questioning lips, about the love-bright maid.
|  Christine, unheeding, turned nor left nor right;
|  With lifted head and eager step unstayed,
|  She strode to Geoffrey, while he stood alone,
|  Radiant with wondering love--as one who sees
|  The light of high, eternal mysteries
|  Illume awhile the mortal shade that moves
|  From out oblivion unto night unknown,
|  Hugging a little grace of joys and loves.
|  Before him now she came and, kneeling, spake,
|  With slow, clear-welling voice: "In ages old
|  This helm was wrought from elfin-hammered gold,
|  For one who, in the after-days, should be
|  Supreme above his kind, as, in the brake
|  Of branching fern, the solitary tree
|  That crests the fell-top.  Unto you I bring
|  The gift of destiny, that, as the sun
|  New-risen of your knighthood, newly-won,
|  The wondering world may see its glory shine."
|  As Christine spake, with questioning glance the King
|  Turned to the Queen, who gave no answering sign.
|  Then, stretching forth his arm, he cried: "Sir knight,
|  I know not by what evil chance this maid
|  Has climbed the secret newell-stair unstayed
|  And reached the casket-chamber, and has borne
|  From thence the Helm of Strife, whereon the light
|  Of day has never fallen, night or morn,
|  For seven hundred years; but, ere you take
|  The doomful gift, know this: he who shall dare
|  To don the golden helm must ever fare
|  Upon the edge of peril, ever ride
|  Between dark-ambushed dangers, ever wake
|  Unto the thunderous crash of battle-tide.
|  Oh, pause before you take the fateful helm.
|  Will you, so young, forego, for evermore,
|  The sheltered haven-raptures of the shore,
|  To strive in ceaseless tempest, till, at last,
|  The fury-crested wave shall overwhelm
|  Your broken life on death's dark crag upcast?"
|  He ceased, and stood with eyes of hot appeal;
|  An aching silence shuddered through the hall;
|  None stirred nor spake, though, swaying like to fall,
|  Christine, in mute, imploring agony,
|  Wavered nigh death.  As glittering points of steel
|  Queen Hild's eyes gleamed in bitter victory.
|  But all were turned to Geoffrey, where he stood
|  In pillared might of manhood, very fair;
|  His face a little paled beneath his hair,
|  Though bright his eyes with all the light of day.
|  At length he spake: "For evil or for good,
|  I take the Helm of Strife; let come what may."



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   IV\.

|  Dawn shivered coldly through the meadowlands;
|  The ever-trembling aspens by the stream
|  Quivered with chilly light and fitful gleam;
|  Ruffling the heavy foliage of the plane,
|  Until the leaves turned, like pale, lifted hands,
|  A cold gust stirred with presage of near rain.
|  Coldly the light on Geoffrey's hauberk fell;
|  But yet more cold on Christine's heart there lay
|  The winter-clutch of grief, as, far away,
|  She saw him ride, and in the stirrup rise
|  And, turning, wave to her a last farewell.
|  Beyond the ridge he vanished, and her eyes
|  Caught the far flashing of the helm of gold
|  One moment as it glanced with mocking light;
|  Then naught but tossing pine-trees filled her sight.
|  Yet darker gloomed the woodlands 'neath the drench
|  Of pillared showers; colder and yet more cold
|  Her heart had shuddered since the last, hot wrench
|  Of parting overnight.  Though still her mouth
|  Felt the mute impress of love's sacred seal;
|  Though still through all her senses seemed to steal
|  The heavy fume of wound-wort that had hung
|  All night about the hedgerows--parched with drouth;
|  Though the first notes the missel-cock had sung,
|  Ere darkness fled, resounded in her ears;
|  Yet no hot tempest of tumultuous woe
|  Shook her young body.  As night-fallen snow
|  Burdens with numb despair young April's green,
|  Her sorrow lay upon her; hopes and fears
|  Within her slept.  As something vaguely seen
|  Nor realised--since yesterday's dread noon
|  Had shattered all love's triumph--life had passed
|  About her like a dream by doom o'ercast.
|  Long hours she sat, with silent, folded hands,
|  And face that glimmered like a winter moon
|  In cloudy hair.  Across the rain-grey lands
|  She gazed with eyes unseeing; till she heard
|  A step within her chamber, and her name
|  Fell dully on her ear; then like a flame
|  Sharp anguish shot through every aching limb
|  With keen remembrance.  Suddenly she stirred,
|  And, turning, looked on Hild.  "Grieve you for him..."
|  The Queen began; then, with a little gasp,
|  Her voice failed, and she shrank before the gaze
|  Of Christine's eyes, and, shrivelled by the blaze
|  Of fires her hand had kindled, all her pride
|  Fell shredded, and not even the gold clasp
|  Of queenhood held, her naked deed to hide.
|  She quailed, and, turning, fled from out the room.
|  Soon Christine's wrath was drowned in whelming grief,
|  And in the fall of tears she found relief--
|  As brooding skies in sweet release of rain.
|  All day she wept, until, at length, the gloom
|  Of eve laid soothing hands upon her pain.
|  Then, once again, she rose, calm-browed, and sped
|  Downstairs with silent step, and reached, unstayed,
|  The Grey Nun's Walk, where all alone a maid
|  Drank in the rain-cooled air.  With low-breathed words,
|  They whispered long together, while, o'erhead,
|  From rain-wet branches rang the song of birds.
|  The maiden often paused as in alarm;
|  Then, with uncertain, half-delaying pace,
|  She left Christine, returning in a space
|  With Philip, Christine's brother, a young squire,
|  Who strode by her with careless, swinging arm
|  And eager face, with keen, blue eyes afire.
|  Then all three stood, with whispering heads bent low,
|  In eager converse clustered; till, at last,
|  They parted, and, with high hopes beating fast,
|  Christine unto her turret-room returned--
|  Her dark eyes bright and all her face aglow,
|  As if some new-lit rapture in her burned.
|  About her little chamber swift she moved,
|  Until, at length, in travelling array,
|  She paused to rest, and all-impatient lay
|  Upon her snow-white bed, and watched the light
|  Fail from the lilied arras that she loved
|  Because her hand had wrought each petal white
|  And slender, emerald stem.  The falling night
|  Was lit for her with many a memory
|  Of little things she could no longer see,
|  That had been with her in old, happy hours,
|  Before her girlish joys had taken flight
|  As morning dews from noon-unfolding flowers.
|  For her, with laggard pace the minutes trailed,
|  Till night seemed to eternity outdrawn.
|  At last, an hour before the summer-dawn,
|  She rose and once again, with noiseless tread,
|  Crept down the stair, grey-cloaked and closely veiled,
|  While every shadow struck her cold with dread
|  Lest, drawing back the arras, Hild should stand
|  With mocking smile before her; but, unstayed,
|  She reached the stair-foot, and, no more afraid,
|  She sought a low and shadow-hidden door,
|  Slid back the silent bolts with eager hand,
|  And stepped into the garden dim once more.
|  She quickly crossed a dewy-plashing lawn,
|  And, passing through a little wicket-gate,
|  She reached the road.  Not long had she to wait
|  Ere, with two bridled horses, Philip came.
|  Silent they mounted; far they fared ere dawn
|  Burnished the castle-weathercock to flame.



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   V\.

|  Northward they climbed from out the valley mist;
|  Northward they crossed the sun-enchanted fells;
|  Northward they plunged down deep, fern-hidden dells;
|  And northward yet--until the sapphire noon
|  Had burned and glowed to thunderous amethyst
|  Of evening skies about an opal moon;
|  Northward they followed fast the loud-tongued fame
|  Of young Sir Geoffrey of the golden helm;
|  Until it seemed that storm must overwhelm
|  Their weary flight.  They sought a lodging-place,
|  And soon upon a lonely cell they came
|  Wherein a hermit laboured after grace.
|  On beds of withered bracken, soft and warm,
|  He housed them, and himself, all night, alone,
|  Knelt in long vigil on the aching stone,
|  Within his little chapel, though, all night,
|  His prayers were drowned by thunders of the storm,
|  And all about him flashed blue, pulsing light.
|  Christine in calm, undreaming slumber lay,
|  Nor stirred till, clear and glittering, the morn
|  Sang through the forest; though, with roots uptorn,
|  The mightiest-limbed and highest-soaring oak
|  Had fallen charred, with green leaves shrivelled grey.
|  At tinkling of the matin-bell she woke,
|  And soon with Philip left the woodland boughs
|  For barer uplands.  Over tawny bent
|  And purpling heath they rode till day was spent;
|  When, down within a broad, green-dusking dale,
|  They sought the shelter of the holy house
|  Of God's White Sisters of the Virgin's Veil.
|  So, day by day, they ever northward pressed,
|  Until they left the lands of peace behind,
|  And rode among the border-hills, where blind
|  Insatiate warfare ever rages fierce;
|  Where night-winds ever fan a fiery crest,
|  And dawn's light breaks on bright, embattled spears:
|  A land whose barren hills are helmed with towers;
|  A lone, grey land of battle-wasted shires;
|  A land of blackened barns and empty byres;
|  A land of rock-bound holds and robber-hordes,
|  Of slumberous noons and wakeful midnight hours,
|  Of ambushed dark and moonlight flashing swords.
|  With hand on hilt and ever-kindling eyes,
|  Flushed face and quivering nostril, Philip rode;
|  But nought assailed them; every lone abode
|  Forsaken seemed; all empty lay the land
|  Beneath the empty sky; only the cries
|  Of plovers pierced the blue on either hand;
|  Until, at sudden cresting of a hill,
|  The clang of battle sounded on their ears,
|  And, far below, they saw a surge of spears
|  Crash on unyielding ranks; while, from the sea
|  Of striving steel, with deathly singing shrill,
|  A spray of arrows flickered fitfully.
|  Amazed they stood, wide-eyed, with holden breath;
|  When, of a sudden, flashed upon their sight
|  The golden helm in midmost of the fight,
|  Where, with high-lifted head and undismayed,
|  Sir Geoffrey rode, a very lord of death,
|  With ever-leaping, ever-crashing blade.
|  Christine watched long, now cold with quaking dread,
|  Now hot with hope as each assailant fell;
|  The bright sword held her gaze as by a spell;
|  Because love blinded her to all but love,
|  Unmoved she watched the foemen shudder dead,
|  She whose heart erst the meanest woe could move.
|  Then, dazed, she saw a solitary shaft,
|  Unloosed with certain aim from out the bow,
|  Strike clean through Geoffrey's hauberk, and bring low
|  The golden helm, while o'er him swiftly met
|  The tides of fight.  Christine a little laughed
|  With rattling throat, and stood with still eyes set.
|  Scarce Philip dared to raise his eyes to hers
|  To see the terror there.  No word she spake,
|  But leaned a little forward through the brake
|  That bloomed about her in a golden blaze;
|  Her hands were torn to bleeding by the furze,
|  Yet nothing could disturb that dreadful gaze.
|  Then, gradually, the heaving battle swerved
|  To northward, faltering broken, and afar
|  It closed again, where, round a jutting scar,
|  The flashing torrent of the river curved.
|  With eager step Christine ran down the hill,
|  And sped across the late-forsaken field
|  To where, with shattered sword and splintered shield,
|  Among the mounded bodies Geoffrey lay.
|  She loosed his helm, but deathly pale and still
|  His young face gleamed within the light of day.
|  Christine beside him knelt, as Philip sought
|  A draught of water from the peat-born stream;
|  When, in his eyes, at last, a fitful gleam
|  Flickered, and bending low, with straining ears,
|  The laboured breathing of her name she caught;
|  And over his dead face fell fast her tears.
|  Once more towards them the tide of battle swept;
|  Christine moved not.  Young Philip on her cried,
|  And strove, in vain, to draw her safe aside.
|  A random shaft in her unshielded breast--
|  Though hot to stay its course her brother leapt--
|  Struck quivering, and she slowly sank to rest.



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   VI\.

|  Queen Hild sat weaving in her garden-close,
|  When on her startled ear there fell the news
|  Of Christine's flight before the darkling dews
|  Had thrilled with dawn.  A strand of golden thread
|  Slipped from her trembling fingers as she rose
|  And hastened to the castle with drooped head.
|  All morn she paced within her blinded room,
|  Unresting, to and fro, her white hands clenched;
|  All morn within her tearless eyes, unquenched,
|  Blue fires of anger smouldered, yet no moan
|  Escaped her lips.  Without, in summer bloom,
|  The garden murmured with bliss-burdened drone
|  Of hover-flies and lily-charmed bees;
|  Sometimes a finch lit on the window-ledge,
|  With shrilly pipe, or, from the rose-hung hedge,
|  A blackbird fluted; yet she neither heard
|  Nor heeded aught; until, by rich degrees,
|  Drowsed into noon the noise of bee and bird.
|  Yea, even when, without her chamber, stayed
|  A doubtful step, and timid fingers knocked,
|  She answered not, but, swiftly striding, locked
|  Yet more secure, with angry-clicking key,
|  The bolted door, and the affrighted maid
|  Unto the waiting hall fled, fearfully.
|  Wearied at last, upon her bed Queen Hild
|  In fitful slumber sank; but evil dreams
|  Of battle-stricken lands and blood-red streams
|  Swirled through her brain.  Then, suddenly, she woke,
|  Wide-eyed, and sat upright, with body chilled,
|  Though in her throat the hot air seemed to choke.
|  Swiftly she rose; then, binding her loosed hair,
|  She bathed her throbbing brows, and, cold and calm,
|  Downstairs she glided, while the evening-psalm
|  In maiden-voices quavered, faint and sweet,
|  And from the chapel-tower, through quivering air,
|  The bell's clear silver-tinkling clove the heat.
|  She strode into the hall where yet the King
|  Sat with his knights; a weary minstrel stirred
|  Cool, throbbing wood-notes, throated like a bird,
|  From his soft-stringèd lute.  With scornful eyes
|  Hild looked on them and spake: "Can nothing sting
|  Your slumberous hearts from slothful peace to rise?
|  Must only stripling-knights and maidens ride
|  To battle, where, unceasing, foemen wage
|  War on your marches, and your wardens rage
|  In impotent despair with desperate swords,
|  While you, O King, with sheathèd arms abide?"
|  She paused, and, wondering, the King and lords
|  Looked on her mutely; then, again, she spake:
|  "Shall I, then, and my maidens sally forth
|  With battle-brands to conquer the wild north?
|  Yea, I will go!  Who follows after me?"
|  As by a blow struck suddenly awake,
|  The King leapt up, and, like a clamorous sea,
|  The knights about him.  Scornfully the Queen
|  Looked on them: "So my woman's words have roused
|  The hands that slumbered and the hearts that drowsed.
|  Make ready then for battle; ere seven days
|  Have passed, the dawn must light your armour's sheen,
|  And in the sun your pennoned lances blaze."
|  Her voice ceased; and a pulsing flame of light
|  Flashed through the hall; in crashing thunder broke
|  The heavy, hanging heat; the rafters woke
|  In echo as the rainy torrent poured;
|  Bright gleamed the rapid lightning; yet more bright
|  The war-lust kindled hot in every lord.
|  To clang of armour the seventh morning stirred
|  From slumber; restless hoof and champing bit
|  Aroused the garth; and day, arising, lit
|  A hundred lances, as, each bolt withdrawn,
|  The courtyard-gate swung wide with noise far-heard,
|  And flickering pennons rode into the dawn--
|  Before his knights, the King, and at his side,
|  Queen Hild, with ever-northward-gazing eyes;
|  But, ere they far had fared, in mute surprise
|  They stayed and all drew rein, as down the road
|  They saw a little band of warriors ride--
|  Sore travel-stained--who bore a heavy load
|  Upon a branch-hung litter; while before
|  Came Philip, bearing a war-broken lance.
|  Though King and lords looked, wondering, in a glance
|  Queen Hild had read the sorrow of his face
|  And pierced the leaf-hid secret--which e'ermore
|  A brand of fire upon her heart would trace.
|  Darkness about her swirled, but, with a fierce
|  Wild, conquering shudder, shaking herself free,
|  Unto the light she clung, though like a sea
|  It surged and eddied round her; yet so still
|  She sat, none knew her steely eyes could pierce
|  The leafy screen.  With guilty terror chill,
|  She heard the king speak--sadly riding forth:
|  "Whence come you, Philip, battle-stained and slow?
|  What burden bear you with such brows of woe?"
|  Then Philip answered, mournfully: "I bring
|  Two wanderers home from out the perilous north.
|  Prepare to gaze on death's defeat, O King."
|  They lowered the litter slowly to the ground;
|  Back fell the branches; in the light of day,
|  In calm, white sleep Christine and Geoffrey lay,
|  And at their feet the baleful Helm of Strife
|  Sword-cloven.  Hushed stood all the knights around,
|  When spake the King, alighting: "Come, O wife,
|  And let us twain, with humble heads low-bowed,
|  Even at the feet of love triumphant stand,
|  A little while together, hand in hand."
|  The Queen obeyed; but, fearfully, she shrank
|  Before the eyes of death, and, quaking, cowed,
|  With moaning cry, low in the dust she sank.

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