Part 3

PALMERIN. Flerida, Though I should give thee all ray life and blood, My honour and immortal soul, 't were nothing By what thou gavest first, and rendering all That should owe thee this sweet privilege Of having lived and loved thee.

_Re-enter_ NURSE.

NURSE. Loitering still? Come, come, the supper's spoiling.

FLERIDA [_pointing to the castle]._ Wilt thou take Possession of thy poor inheritance?

PALMERIN. 'Tis poor indeed, a case without its jewel, Till thou be mine.

FLERIDA. Thou hast my plighted troth.

PALMERIN. Ah, pay the debt! my heart has waited long.

FLERIDA. No priest is in attendance, Palmerin. Till one be duly summoned and arrive I am my father's hostage in thy hands Entrusted to thy love and chivalry.

PALMERIN. I long have bivouacked, lady, 'neath the stars, And I shall better rest beneath their light While I am still an exile from thy bosom. Let me not change the canopy of heaven Except for heaven's self. Before this shrine I watched my virgin arms on the proud eve Of my first knighting. On this prouder vigil Let me hold silent session with my heart Again before this altar, keeping watch Over this sweeter boon, my virgin bride To be to-morrow mine.

FLERIDA [_to the_ NURSE]. Bid them bring hither Some wine and morsels for Sir Palmerin, And torches, and their lutes and dulcimers.

[_Exit_ NURSE.

PALMERIN. We sup to-night beneath a lovers' moon Not quite at full.

FLERIDA. We sup beneath the stars That never wane, though nether storms obscure Their revolutions to the wistful eyes Of mortals. So our love shall never wane But when its fame on earth is heard no more, Translated to the language of the skies, It yet shall be a parcel of that joy Which saves the world from baseness.

_Attendants with torches and musical instruments enter, while others bring in supper._

SONG.

_Come make thy dwelling here_ _Where all sweet pleasures are._ _For many a weary year_ _From mates and lady dear_ _Thou wanderest afar._ _Come make thy dwelling here_ _Beneath love's golden star. The battles' stress is o'er_ _That should thy worth approve._ _Oh, follow now no more_ _The ruby star of war_ _That onward still must move._ _Fixed shines above thy door_ _The golden star of love._

PALMERIN. Flerida, What solace had thy orphaned life for thee In this fair desert? Was not Ulric here To lend thee succour?

FLERIDA. He was here, alas!

PALMERIN. Alas?

FLERIDA. That he proved false.

PALMERIN. I marvel. Speak.

FLERIDA. Ah me! A sorry tale.--He said the castle As to my father's second came to him; That I within it, as the world would think, Must be his also. Doubtless thou wast dead, Else tidings would have come. To save my honour I must not wait, but bend to be his wife.

PALMERIN. Said Ulric so, that brave and trusty man? Only some madness could transform his soul So utterly.

FLERIDA. I question not the cause,

I mark the deed and brand the infamy. When he had spoken and beheld me firm, The coward threatened force. We were alone And he unarmed; it was a woman's body, Not a man's soul, he thought to cope withal. My father's sword was hanging by the wall: I drew the blade, and as he rushed to snatch it Transfixed his body; at my feet he fell Writhing; I cried for help. Then Gunther came And the young Hugh. I published his offence, And when the torment and the fever passed, For my poor strength had left some breath in him, Fettered and manacled they brought him forth Into the hall, before my men-at-arms And the red witness of his own foul blood Staining the hearthstone; and I spoke and said: "Unhappy Ulric, traitor to thy liege, Whom on the cross thou tookest oath to serve, Thou shalt await his sentence. When he comes He shall know all and will decree thy forfeit. But if he come not, thou shalt live in chains Till God and death restore thy liberty."

PALMERIN. Is he still captive?

FLERIDA. In the northern tower, Whence Hugh but now, whom Christian charity Prompts oft to visit our sad prisoner, Saw thee approach. Ulric has heard the news.

PALMERIN. Let him be brought.

FLERIDA [_to the men-at-arms_]. You hear my lord's command.-- Ah, Palmerin, when Christ returns to earth Only the good shall welcome him; thy coming Will bring thy faithless servant also joy, For I foresee thy sentence,

PALMERIN. To be merciful Is to be truly just.--Has he not mended Or purged his sin in his captivity?

FLERIDA. Indeed, it seems he has. Hugh and the friar Who daily visits him both bring report Of many pious and profound discourses With which he charms away his solitude. God grant his wisdom may outlive its cause And not forsake him now. For, see, he comes.

_Re-enter the men-at-arms, leading in_ ULRIC, _bound._

PALMERIN. Ulric, it wounds my soul to see thee thus. Undo the fetters.

[ULRIC _is freed._

What has chanced I know. 'T were idle to rehearse that history. Only one matter, past my understanding, I ask thee to confess: how came thy soul To harbour thoughts so opposite to thine And do thy nobleness this injury?

ULRIC. Alas! The saddest sorrow of the world Is not foul sin, but that resplendent virtue That yet brings evil on. 'T was nothing base, Hideous, ignoble, or contemptible That led me to my ruin, but the might Of perfect sweetness, joy unthinkable, And infinite deserts_;_ it was the hunger For what most truly merits to be loved. 'T was love, my lord, the love of Flerida Which, in thy bosom waking heaven's choirs, Brought hell into my breast. Was not her face As fair for me as thee to look upon? Was not her silver voice and high discourse Potent with reason on my listening ears? Why was it criminal in me to love And in thee lawful? For we both were men, And I the elder and the better born, Who might have wooed and won her worthily. Yet with no other crime than lucklessness, Because her father and her constant soul Lit first on thee, the tempest of my love Wrecked honour, faith, fame, life, and hope of heaven, Which, had the winds blown gently on my fortunes, The self-same love had blessed and glorified.

PALMERIN. I pity thee; but summon not thy love To shield thy shame. Hadst thou been fortunate, Should I with cunning and outrageous hand Have moved against thy peace? Nay, by God's mercy, I should have gone my way, and patiently In other worlds have justified my soul; For sorrow more religiously than love Counselleth mortals.

ULRIC. Ah, I loved too much.

PALMERIN. Thou sayest well, Too much. Not that thy love In sweetness or in silent potency Of grief surpassed or mine or any man's. But finding in thy spirit no defence, Love fattened on thy reason, drank thy will, And quite consumed thy being; growing great, It left thee little, as, when a fiery wind Devours the stubble, both together perish And all goes out in shame. Water these ashes, Ulric, with warm and consecrated tears, That haply some new sweetness thence arise Beneath another heaven. Though thou leave us, Our hearts will not forget thee. In thy prayers Remember us, and use thy freedom well.

ULRIC. I thank thee for thy counsel and thy mercy, Generous knight. Not comfortless I go, For not thy lips alone, well catechised, Forgive me, Palmerin: thy heart forgives. I would not use my freedom now to rove But to ascend. A cloister's little earth Is covered by the whole wide firmament. Being changed within, there let me live and die An anchorite, that I may outwardly Become a breathing symbol and a hand Pointing to heaven, become a lamp of love And keep my spirit's sacrificial flame Burning before the altar, till my blood, Its living oil, to light refine its fire And rise, by prayer transmuted, from this world. And at this parting let me bless thee, lady, Angel God chose to save me from my sin Even by tempting me. For in the storm And fury of my madness thy calm eyes That unaware had called me, as the moon Summons the leaping sea to follow her, Soon with quick bolt and soul-transfixing ire Awaked me from my dream. For who was I, That I should lift me to so pure a being Except in adoration, as the wave That mirrors in its slimy breast the glory Of some clear star, soon, grateful for that light, Sinks, moaning, to its restless element. So moaned I, in my dungeon's loneliness And in that larger solitude, the world, Where now no joy remained to beckon me. I cried to Nature, questioned sun and moon, At my cell's bars celestial visitants; Yes, I importuned my own soul to tell me Whether a man be born to look on good And straightway perish. Long I questioned fate. No answer came from heaven to my doubts; But with the Spring and the reviving note Of thrush and swallow, and the ploughman's song Heard from the fields, I somewhat calmed my griefs, And my heart took new counsel. Though a wave Mirror a star and sink into the sea, It cannot suffer; though the summer fade It shivers not at autumn; though the spheres Crash back to chaos they lament it not. Never the blasted deserts of the moon Mourned their lost verdure or implored reprieve. But my loud heart-beats, self-contemplative, Note their own weariness, and death foreknown Makes life a grim and halting agony. Yet something in me rides on circumstance And swims the tide of change. How should that die Which knows its dying, or that pine and fade Which marks the shrivelled leafage of the year? Can ashes choke that voice to lying silence Which once has said: I love? That truth must live Though unremembered, and that splendour shine Though all eyes close in sleep. When first I loved thee Something immortal darted through my flesh And made me godlike. Henceforth all of me That loved thee, all of thee my puissant love Hedging with worship rescued from the void Lives in eternity, a part of God, Who feeds with earth's unquenchable desire The skies' ethereal altar, to whose flame Passions are brands, thoughts smoke and frankincense, Nations and worlds unceasing hecatombs. There, growing one with all that ravished me, I also bum and never cease from love. Farewell, sweet lady. For thy pity thanks, More thanks for thy disdain, but for thy beauty Infinite thanks, for it was infinite And, while it blinded most, unsealed mine eyes.

FLERIDA. Go in God's peace, and may he grant thee grace To see him always.

_Exit_ ULRIC.

Palmerin, this night Brings me a surfeit and a cloud of joys. I cannot seize them all. But many days Will suck their drop of sweetness from this store, And many silent nights and absences Feed on its garnered bliss.

NURSE. What, prattling still? You 'll catch the ague and the chill of the fens, And lolling in the moonlight, talking love, You 'll die before the wedding. Come along.

PALMERIN. Sleep, Flerida, falls sweetly on a heart Freed from long doubt and anguish. Take thy rest. Palmerin watches at thy castle gates And all is well. Sleep, sleep, my Flerida.

FLERIDA. Let me gaze long upon thee ere I go, Lest, waking, I believe that I have dreamt And weep anew and be disconsolate.

PALMERIN. Ah, were I only lying by thy side At the first checking of thy peaceful breath, To chase away that doubt before it grieved thee And with two kisses close thy dreamful eyes! Alas that we should meet to part, and love Only to be divided!

FLERIDA. Palmerin, Though thou hast faced the world and conquered it, Thy noble heart is young. My briefer years And lonely life have farther traced the thread By which fate guides us through this labyrinth. To learn to part, to learn to be divided, We meet and love on earth; to learn to die Is the one triumph of the life of prayer. Shall love be but to hug the mother's breast, Or else run wailing? To prolong for ever The lovers' kiss, or pine for blandishments? Is the Lord's body but unleavened bread Weighed with a baker's measure, or his blood Wine to be drunk in bumpers? And shall love Be reckoned in embraces, and its grace Die with the taking of its sacrament? These be but symbols to the eye of time Of secrets written in eternity. The love that fed must wean the nourished soul, And through the dark and narrow vale of death Send forth the lover lone but panoplied. Else life were vain and love a moment's trouble That, passing, left untenanted the void, As summer winds a-tremble in this bower Might waft some fragrance from a rifled rose Through yonder gulf of night and nothingness. Hadst thou in battle fallen, were my soul Bereft of Palmerin? Or had I languished, Would Flerida have mocked thy constancy? Banish such thoughts, dear master of my being, From thy immortal soul. These fond enchantments Make the sweet holiday and youth of love; They are a largess and bright boon of heaven To sweeten our resolves. But youth will fade, And death, not mowing with a two-edged scythe, Will cut down one and leave the other bowing Before the wintry wind. Arm not with terror That swift, unheralded, insidious foe, But let him find our love invulnerable And our heart's treasure in eternal hands. My lord, good-night. To-day my joy is full, To God I leave to-morrow. Fare thee well.

PALMERIN [_kneeling to kiss the hand she gives him_]. Good-night, my own. May angels guard thy slumber--

FLERIDA. And share thy vigil--

PALMERIN. Till my angel come.

[_Exit_ FLERIDA, _followed by her household As they go, some voices repeat scratches of the previous song: "Come make thy dwelling here," etc._

PALMERIN [_alone]._

No, Palmerin, unbuckle not thy arms, Guard well thy lady's sleep. Haply the wizards of the wood have charms To make a virgin weep.

All goblin sprites and fairies of the trees That lead their impish dance Will spy thy mantle's cross; their blood will freeze To see a Christian lance.

Hark! the old croaking frogs, and the far din Of crickets in the field. They bid me welcome home. "Hie, Palmerin, Once of the argent shield,

"What's this device? Is Flerida this flower, And these five pearls her tears, Shed for thy love in her disconsolate bower These five unhappy years?

"Those sable bars athwart a field of gules, Are they thy nights and days Spent mid bluff captains and rash drunken fools In marches, bouts, and frays?"

Ay, ye chirp well, if I divine your note, Ye civil, croaking elves! A foolish master have your fields and moat And your so learned selves.

Nothing he knows of wit or bookish lore And nothing of the fair, Only to break the brutal front of war And half repeat a prayer.

Yet this sad wight is he, as fairies know, Whom Flerida hath blest, Soon locked within her arms. She long ago Was locked within his breast,

Celestial Flerida, whom all the hours Adorning from her birth Have crowned the queen of stars, the queen of flowers, The queen of maids on earth.

Her peerless heart hath chosen him her lord, The rare intrepid maid, Whose tender hand incarnadined a sword Lest he should be betrayed.

Out of his nothingness her bounteous love Bred all his poor desert As God lent to the void he made us of His image for a heart.

Like to the dateless dark before our birth Are those five winters past, This vigil like the twilight life of earth, Then paradise at last

And changeless love. How in the paling skies The star of morning burns! Open, heaven's gates! Eternal sun, arise! Sir Palmerin returns.

ELEGIAC AND LYRIC POEMS

PREMONITION

The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.

A hidden light illumines all our seeing, An unknown love enchants our solitude. We feel and know that from the depths of being Exhales an infinite, a perfect good.

Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrow And be not happy like a naked star, Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow, Some rapture from the rapture felt afar.

Our heart strings are too coarse for Nature's fingers To wake her purest melodies upon, And the harsh tremor that among them lingers Will into sweeter silence die anon.

We catch the broken prelude and suggestion Of things unuttered, needing to be sung; We know the burden of them, and their question Lies heavy on the heart, nor finds a tongue.

Till haply, lightning through the storm of ages, Our sullen secret flash from sky to sky, Glowing in some diviner poet's pages And swelling into rapture from this sigh.

SOLIPSISM

I could believe that I am here alone, And all the world my dream; The passion of the scene is all my own, And things that seem but seem.

Perchance an exhalation of my sorrow Hath raised this vaporous show, For whence but from my soul should all things borrow So deep a tinge of woe?

I keep the secret doubt within my breast To be the gods' defence, To ease the heart by too much ruth oppressed And drive the horror hence.

O sorrow that the patient brute should cower And die, not having sinned! O pity that the wild and fragile flower Should shiver in the wind!

Then were I dreaming dreams I know not of, For that is part of me That feels the piercing pang of grief and love And doubts eternally.

But whether all to me the vision come Or break in many beams, The pageant ever shifts, and being's sum Is but the sum of dreams.

SYBARIS

Lap, ripple, lap, Icarian wave, the sand Along the ruins of this piteous land; Murmur the praises of a lost delight, And soothe the aching of my starved sight With sheen of mirrored beauties, caught aright.

Here stood enchanted palaces of old, All veined porphyry and burnished gold; Here matrons and slight maidens sat aloof Beneath cool porches, rich with Tyrian woof Hung from the carven rafters of the roof.

Here in the mart a swarthy turbaned brave Showed the wrought blade or praised the naked slave. "Touch with your finger-tips this edge of steel," Quoth he, "and see this lad, from head to heel Like a bronze Cupid. Feel, my masters, feel."

Here Aphrodite filled with frenzied love The dark recesses of her murmurous grove. The doves that haunted it, the winds that sighed, Were souls of youths that in her coverts died, And hopes of heroes strewed her garden wide.

Under her shades a narrow brazen gate Led to the courts of Ares and of Fate. Who entered breathed the unutterable prayer Of cruel hearts, and death was worshipped there, And men went thence enfranchised by despair.

Here the proud athlete in the baths delayed, While a cool fountain on his shoulders played, Then in fine linen swathed his breast and thighs, And silent, myrtle-crowned, with serious eyes, Stepped forth to list the wranglings of the wise.

A sage stalked by, his ragged mantle bound About his brows; his eyes perused the ground; He conned the number of the cube and square Of the moon's orb; his horny feet and bare Trampled the lilies carpeting the stair.

A jasper terrace hung above the sea Where the King supped with his beloved three: The Libyan chanted of her native land In raucous melody, the Indian fanned, And the huge mastiff licked his master's hand.

Below, alone, despairing of the gale, A crouching sailor furled the saffron sail; Then rose, breathed deep, and plunged in the lagoon. A mermaid spied his glistening limbs: her croon Enticed him down; her cold arms choked him soon.

And the King laughed, filled full his jewelled bowl, And drinking cried: "What know we of the soul? What number addeth to her harmony These drops of vintage that attune her key, Or those of brine that set the wretched free?

"If death should change me, as old fables feign, Into some slave or beast, to purge with pain My lordly pleasures, let my torment be Still to behold thee, Sybaris, and see The sacred horror of thy loves and thee.

"Be thou my hell, my dumb eternal grief, But spare thy King the madness of belief, The brutish faith of ignorant desire That strives and wanders. Let the visible fire Of beauty torture me. That doom is higher.

"I wear the crown of life. The rose and gem Twine with the pale gold of my diadem. Nature, long secret, hath unveiled to me And proved her vile. Her wanton bosoms be My pillow now. I know her, I am free."

He spoke, and smiling stretched a languid hand, And music burst in mighty chords and bland Of harp and flute and cymbal.--When between Two cypresses the large moon rose, her sheen Silvered the nymphs' feet, tripping o'er the green.

AVILA

Again my feet are on the fragrant moor Amid the purple uplands of Castile, Realm proudly desolate and nobly poor, Scorched by the sky's inexorable zeal.

Wide desert where a diadem of towers Above Adajar hems a silent town, And locks, unmindful of the mocking hours, Her twenty temples in a granite crown.

The shafts of fervid light are in the sky, And in my heart the mysteries of yore. Here the sad trophies of my spirit lie: These dead fulfilled my destiny before.

Like huge primeval stones that strew this plain, Their nameless sorrows sink upon my breast, And like this ardent sky their cancelled pain Smiles at my grief and quiets my unrest.

For here hath mortal life from age to age Endured the silent hand that makes and mars, And, sighing, taken up its heritage Beneath the smiling and inhuman stars.

Still o'er this town the crested castle stands, A nest for storks, as once for haughty souls; Still from the abbey, where the vale expands, The curfew for the long departed tolls,

Wafting some ghostly blessing to the heart From prayer of nun or silent Capuchin, To heal with balm of Golgotha the smart Of weary labour and distracted sin.

What fate has cast me on a tide of time Careless of joy and covetous of gold, What force compelled to weave the pensive rhyme When loves are mean, and faith and honour old,

When riches crown in vain men's sordid lives, And learning chokes a mind of base degree? What winged spirit rises from their hives? What heart, revolting, ventures to be free?

Their pride will sink and more ignobly fade Without memorial of its hectic fire. What altars shall survive them, where they prayed? What lovely deities? What riven lyre?

Tarry not, pilgrim, but with inward gaze Pass daily, musing, where their prisons are, And o'er the ocean of their babble raise Thy voice in greeting to thy changeless star.

Abroad a tumult, and a ruin here; Nor world nor desert hath a home for thee. Out of the sorrows of the barren year Build thou thy dwelling in eternity.

Let patience, faith's wise sister, be thy heaven, And with high thoughts necessity alloy. Love is enough, and love is ever given, While fleeting days bring gift of fleeting joy.