Part 2

It ceased, and she thought of whom was need, The friar or the leech; When lo, stood her tirewoman breathless by: Lord Dusiote, madam, to death is nigh, Of you he would have speech.

V.

He prays you of your gentleness, To light him to his dark end. The princess rose, and forth she went, For charity was her intent, Devoutly to befriend.

VI.

Lord Dusiote hung on his good squire's arm, The priest beside him knelt: A weeping handkerchief was pressed To stay the red flood at his breast, And bid cold ladies melt.

VII.

O lady, though you are ice to men, All pure to heaven as light Within the dew within the flower, Of you 'tis whispered that love has power When secret is the night.

VIII.

I have silenced the slanderers, peace to their souls! Save one was too cunning for me. I die, whose love is late avowed, He lives, who boasts the lily has bowed To the oath of a bended knee.

IX.

Lord Dusiote drew breath with pain, And she with pain drew breath: On him she looked, on his like above; She flew in the folds of a marvel of love, Revealed to pass to death.

X.

You are dying, O great-hearted lord, You are dying for me, she cried; O take my hand, O take my kiss, And take of your right for love like this, The vow that plights me bride.

XI.

She bade the priest recite his words While hand in hand were they, Lord Dusiote's soul to waft to bliss; He had her hand, her vow, her kiss, And his body was borne away.

III

I.

Lord Dusiote sprang from priest and squire; He gazed at her lighted room: The laughter in his heart grew slack; He knew not the force that pushed him back From her and the morn in bloom.

II.

Like a drowned man's length on the strong flood-tide, Like the shade of a bird in the sun, He fled from his lady whom he might claim As ghost, and who made the daybeams flame To scare what he had done.

III.

There was grief at Court for one so gay, Though he was a lord less keen For training the vine than at vintage-press; But in her soul the young princess Believed that love had been.

IV.

Lord Dusiote fled the Court and land, He crossed the woeful seas, Till his traitorous doing seemed clearer to burn, And the lady beloved drew his heart for return, Like the banner of war in the breeze.

V.

He neared the palace, he spied the Court, And music he heard, and they told Of foreign lords arrived to bring The nuptial gifts of a bridegroom king To the princess grave and cold.

VI.

The masque and the dance were cloud on wave, And down the masque and the dance Lord Dusiote stepped from dame to dame, And to the young princess he came, With a bow and a burning glance.

VII.

Do you take a new husband to-morrow, lady? She shrank as at prick of steel. Must the first yield place to the second, he sighed. Her eyes were like the grave that is wide For the corpse from head to heel.

VIII.

My lady, my love, that little hand Has mine ringed fast in plight: I bear for your lips a lawful thirst, And as justly the second should follow the first, I come to your door this night.

IX.

If a ghost should come a ghost will go: No more the lady said, Save that ever when he in wrath began To swear by the faith of a living man, She answered him, You are dead.

IV

I.

The soft night-wind went laden to death With smell of the orange in flower; The light leaves prattled to neighbour ears; The bird of the passion sang over his tears; The night named hour by hour.

II.

Sang loud, sang low the rapturous bird Till the yellow hour was nigh, Behind the folds of a darker cloud: He chuckled, he sobbed, alow, aloud; The voice between earth and sky.

III.

O will you, will you, women are weak; The proudest are yielding mates For a forward foot and a tongue of fire: So thought Lord Dusiote's trusty squire, At watch by the palace-gates.

IV.

The song of the bird was wine in his blood, And woman the odorous bloom: His master's great adventure stirred Within him to mingle the bloom and bird, And morn ere its coming illume.

V.

Beside him strangely a piece of the dark Had moved, and the undertones Of a priest in prayer, like a cavernous wave, He heard, as were there a soul to save For urgency now in the groans.

VI.

No priest was hired for the play this night: And the squire tossed head like a deer At sniff of the tainted wind; he gazed Where cresset-lamps in a door were raised, Belike on a passing bier.

VII.

All cloaked and masked, with naked blades, That flashed of a judgement done, The lords of the Court, from the palace-door, Came issuing silently, bearers four, And flat on their shoulders one.

VIII.

They marched the body to squire and priest, They lowered it sad to earth: The priest they gave the burial dole, Bade wrestle hourly for his soul, Who was a lord of worth.

IX.

One said, farewell to a gallant knight! And one, but a restless ghost! 'Tis a year and a day since in this place He died, sped high by a lady of grace To join the blissful host.

X.

Not vainly on us she charged her cause, The lady whom we revere For faith in the mask of a love untrue To the Love we honour, the Love her due, The Love we have vowed to rear.

XI.

A trap for the sweet tooth, lures for the light, For the fortress defiant a mine: Right well! But not in the South, princess, Shall the lady snared of her nobleness Ever shamed or a captive pine.

XII.

When the South had voice of a nightingale Above a Maying bower, On the heights of Love walked radiant peers; The bird of the passion sang over his tears To the breeze and the orange-flower.

KING HARALD'S TRANCE

I.

Sword in length a reaping-hook amain Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank: 'Mid the swathes of slain, First at moonrise drank.

II.

Thereof hunger, as for meats the knife, Pricked his ribs, in one sharp spur to reach Home and his young wife, Nigh the sea-ford beach.

III.

After battle keen to feed was he: Smoking flesh the thresher washed down fast, Like an angry sea Ships from keel to mast.

IV.

Name us glory, singer, name us pride Matching Harald's in his deeds of strength; Chiefs, wife, sword by side, Foemen stretched their length!

V.

Half a winter night the toasts hurrahed, Crowned him, clothed him, trumpeted him high, Till awink he bade Wife to chamber fly.

VI.

Twice the sun had mounted, twice had sunk, Ere his ears took sound; he lay for dead; Mountain on his trunk, Ocean on his head.

VII.

Clamped to couch, his fiery hearing sucked Whispers that at heart made iron-clang: Here fool-women clucked, There men held harangue.

VIII.

Burial to fit their lord of war, They decreed him: hailed the kingling: ha! Hateful! but this Thor Failed a weak lamb's baa.

IX.

King they hailed a branchlet, shaped to fare, Weighted so, like quaking shingle spume, When his blood's own heir Ripened in the womb!

X.

Still he heard, and doglike, hoglike, ran Nose of hearing till his blind sight saw: Woman stood with man Mouthing low, at paw.

XI.

Woman, man, they mouthed; they spake a thing Armed to split a mountain, sunder seas: Still the frozen king Lay and felt him freeze.

XII.

Doglike, hoglike, horselike now he raced, Riderless, in ghost across a ground Flint of breast, blank-faced, Past the fleshly bound.

XIII.

Smell of brine his nostrils filled with might: Nostrils quickened eyelids, eyelids hand: Hand for sword at right Groped, the great haft spanned.

XIV.

Wonder struck to ice his people's eyes: Him they saw, the prone upon the bier, Sheer from backbone rise, Sword uplifting peer.

XV.

Sitting did he breathe against the blade, Standing kiss it for that proof of life: Strode, as netters wade, Straightway to his wife.

XVI.

Her he eyed: his judgement was one word, Foulbed! and she fell: the blow clove two. Fearful for the third, All their breath indrew.

XVII.

Morning danced along the waves to beach; Dumb his chiefs fetched breath for what might hap: Glassily on each Stared the iron cap.

XVIII.

Sudden, as it were a monster oak Split to yield a limb by stress of heat, Strained he, staggered, broke Doubled at their feet.

WHIMPER OF SYMPATHY

Hawk or shrike has done this deed Of downy feathers: rueful sight! Sweet sentimentalist, invite Your bosom's Power to intercede.

So hard it seems that one must bleed Because another needs will bite! All round we find cold Nature slight The feelings of the totter-knee'd.

O it were pleasant, with you To fly from this tussle of foes, The shambles, the charnel, the wrinkle! To dwell in yon dribble of dew On the cheek of your sovereign rose, And live the young life of a twinkle.

YOUNG REYNARD

I.

Gracefullest leaper, the dappled fox-cub Curves over brambles with berries and buds, Light as a bubble that flies from the tub, Whisked by the laundry-wife out of her suds. Wavy he comes, woolly, all at his ease, Elegant, fashioned to foot with the deuce; Nature's own prince of the dance: then he sees Me, and retires as if making excuse.

II.

Never closed minuet courtlier! Soon Cub-hunting troops were abroad, and a yelp Told of sure scent: ere the stroke upon noon Reynard the younger lay far beyond help. Wild, my poor friend, has the fate to be chased; Civil will conquer: were 'tother 'twere worse. Fair, by the flushed early morning embraced, Haply you live a day longer in verse.

MANFRED

Projected from the bilious Childe, This clatterjaw his foot could set On Alps, without a breast beguiled To glow in shedding rascal sweat. Somewhere about his grinder teeth, He mouthed of thoughts that grilled beneath, And summoned Nature to her feud With bile & buskin Attitude.

II.

Considerably was the world Of spinsterdom and clergy racked While he his hinted horrors hurled, And she pictorially attacked. A duel hugeous! Tragic? Ho! The cities, not the mountains, blow Such bladders; in their shapes confessed An after-dinner's indigest.

HERNANI

Cistercians might crack their sides With laughter, and exemption get, At sight of heroes clasping brides, And hearing--O the horn! the horn! The horn of their obstructive debt!

But quit the stage, that note applies For sermons cosmopolitan, Hernani. Have we filched our prize, Forgetting...? O the horn! the horn! The horn of the Old Gentleman!

THE NUPTIALS OF ATTILA

I.

Flat as to an eagle's eye, Earth hung under Attila. Sign for carnage gave he none. In the peace of his disdain, Sun and rain, and rain and sun, Cherished men to wax again, Crawl, and in their manner die. On his people stood a frost. Like the charger cut in stone, Rearing stiff, the warrior host, Which had life from him alone, Craved the trumpet's eager note, As the bridled earth the Spring. Rusty was the trumpet's throat. He let chief and prophet rave; Venturous earth around him string Threads of grass and slender rye, Wave them, and untrampled wave. O for the time when God did cry, Eye and have, my Attila!

II.

Scorn of conquest filled like sleep Him that drank of havoc deep When the Green Cat pawed the globe: When the horsemen from his bow Shot in sheaves and made the foe Crimson fringes of a robe, Trailed o'er towns and fields in woe; When they streaked the rivers red, When the saddle was the bed. Attila, my Attila!

III.

He breathed peace and pulled a flower. Eye and have, my Attila! This was the damsel Ildico, Rich in bloom until that hour: Shyer than the forest doe Twinkling slim through branches green. Yet the shyest shall be seen. Make the bed for Attila!

IV.

Seen of Attila, desired, She was led to him straightway: Radiantly was she attired; Rifled lands were her array, Jewels bled from weeping crowns, Gold of woeful fields and towns. She stood pallid in the light. How she walked, how withered white, From the blessing to the board, She who should have proudly blushed, Women whispered, asking why, Hinting of a youth, and hushed. Was it terror of her lord? Was she childish? was she sly? Was it the bright mantle's dye Drained her blood to hues of grief Like the ash that shoots the spark? See the green tree all in leaf: See the green tree stripped of bark!-- Make the bed for Attila!

V.

Round the banquet-table's load Scores of iron horsemen rode; Chosen warriors, keen and hard; Grain of threshing battle-dints; Attila's fierce body-guard, Smelling war like fire in flints. Grant them peace be fugitive! Iron-capped and iron-heeled, Each against his fellow's shield Smote the spear-head, shouting, Live, Attila! my Attila! Eagle, eagle of our breed, Eagle, beak the lamb, and feed! Have her, and unleash us! live, Attila! my Attila!

VI.

He was of the blood to shine Bronze in joy, like skies that scorch. Beaming with the goblet wine In the wavering of the torch, Looked he backward on his bride. Eye and have, my Attila! Fair in her wide robe was she: Where the robe and vest divide, Fair she seemed surpassingly: Soft, yet vivid as the stream Danube rolls in the moonbeam Through rock-barriers: but she smiled Never, she sat cold as salt: Open-mouthed as a young child Wondering with a mind at fault. Make the bed for Attila!

VII.

Under the thin hoop of gold Whence in waves her hair outrolled, 'Twixt her brows the women saw Shadows of a vulture's claw Gript in flight: strange knots that sped Closing and dissolving aye: Such as wicked dreams betray When pale dawn creeps o'er the bed. They might show the common pang Known to virgins, in whom dread Hunts their bliss like famished hounds; While the chiefs with roaring rounds Tossed her to her lord, and sang Praise of him whose hand was large, Cheers for beauty brought to yield, Chirrups of the trot afield, Hurrahs of the battle-charge.

VIII.

Those rock-faces hung with weed Reddened: their great days of speed, Slaughter, triumph, flood and flame, Like a jealous frenzy wrought, Scoffed at them and did them shame, Quaffing idle, conquering naught. O for the time when God decreed Earth the prey of Attila! God called on thee in his wrath, Trample it to mire! 'Twas done. Swift as Danube clove our path Down from East to Western sun. Huns! behold your pasture, gaze, Take, our king said: heel to flank (Whisper it, the warhorse neighs!) Forth we drove, and blood we drank Fresh as dawn-dew: earth was ours: Men were flocks we lashed and spurned: Fast as windy flame devours, Flame along the wind, we burned. Arrow, javelin, spear, and sword! Here the snows and there the plains; On! our signal: onward poured Torrents of the tightened reins, Foaming over vine and corn Hot against the city-wall. Whisper it, you sound a horn To the grey beast in the stall! Yea, he whinnies at a nod. O for sound of the trumpet-notes! O for the time when thunder-shod, He that scarce can munch his oats, Hung on the peaks, brooded aloof, Champed the grain of the wrath of God, Pressed a cloud on the cowering roof, Snorted out of the blackness fire! Scarlet broke the sky, and down, Hammering West with print of his hoof, He burst out of the bosom of ire Sharp as eyelight under thy frown, Attila, my Attila!

IX.

Ravaged cities rolling smoke Thick on cornfields dry and black, Wave his banners, bear his yoke. Track the lightning, and you track Attila. They moan: 'tis he! Bleed: 'tis he! Beneath his foot Leagues are deserts charred and mute; Where he passed, there passed a sea. Attila, my Attila!

X.

--Who breathed on the king cold breath? Said a voice amid the host, He is Death that weds a ghost, Else a ghost that weds with Death? Ildico's chill little hand Shuddering he beheld: austere Stared, as one who would command Sight of what has filled his ear: Plucked his thin beard, laughed disdain. Feast, ye Huns! His arm he raised, Like the warrior, battle-dazed, Joining to the fight amain. Make the bed for Attila!

XI.

Silent Ildico stood up. King and chief to pledge her well, Shocked sword sword and cup on cup, Clamouring like a brazen bell. Silent stepped the queenly slave. Fair, by heaven! she was to meet On a midnight, near a grave, Flapping wide the winding-sheet.

XII.

Death and she walked through the crowd, Out beyond the flush of light. Ceremonious women bowed Following her: 'twas middle night. Then the warriors each on each Spied, nor overloudly laughed; Like the victims of the leech, Who have drunk of a strange draught.

XIII.

Attila remained. Even so Frowned he when he struck the blow, Brained his horse that stumbled twice On a bloody day in Gaul, Bellowing, Perish omens! All Marvelled at the sacrifice, But the battle, swinging dim, Rang off that axe-blow for him Attila, my Attila!

XIV.

Brightening over Danube wheeled Star by star; and she, most fair, Sweet as victory half-revealed, Seized to make him glad and young; She, O sweet as the dark sign Given him oft in battles gone, When the voice within said, Dare! And the trumpet-notes were sprung Rapturous for the charge in line: She lay waiting: fair as dawn Wrapped in folds of night she lay; Secret, lustrous; flaglike there, Waiting him to stream and ray, With one loosening blush outflung, Colours of his hordes of horse Ranked for combat: still he hung Like the fever dreading air, Cursed of heat; and as a corse Gathers vultures, in his brain Images of her eyes and kiss Plucked at the limbs that could remain Loitering nigh the doors of bliss. Make the bed for Attila!

XV.

Passion on one hand, on one, Destiny led forth the Hun. Heard ye outcries of affright, Voices that through many a fray, In the press of flag and spear, Warned the king of peril near? Men were dumb, they gave him way, Eager heads to left and right, Like the bearded standard, thrust, As in battle, for a nod From their lord of battle-dust. Attila, my Attila! Slow between the lines he trod. Saw ye not the sun drop slow On this nuptial day, ere eve Pierced him on the couch aglow? Attila, my Attila! Here and there his heart would cleave Clotted memory for a space: Some stout chief's familiar face, Choicest of his fighting brood, Touched him, as 'twere one to know Ere he met his bride's embrace. Attila, my Attila! Twisting fingers in a beard Scant as winter underwood, With a narrowed eye he peered; Like the sunset's graver red Up old pine-stems. Grave he stood Eyeing them on whom was shed Burning light from him alone. Attila, my Attila! Red were they whose mouths recalled Where the slaughter mounted high, High on it, o'er earth appalled, He; heaven's finger in their sight Raising him on waves of dead: Up to heaven his trumpets blown. O for the time when God's delight Crowned the head of Attila! Hungry river of the crag Stretching hands for earth he came: Force and Speed astride his name Pointed back to spear and flag. He came out of miracle cloud, Lightning-swift and spectre-lean. Now those days are in a shroud: Have him to his ghostly queen. Make the bed for Attila!

XVI.

One, with winecups overstrung, Cried him farewell in Rome's tongue. Who? for the great king turned as though Wrath to the shaft's head strained the bow. Nay, not wrath the king possessed, But a radiance of the breast. In that sound he had the key Of his cunning malady. Lo, where gleamed the sapphire lake, Leo, with his Rome at stake, Drew blank air to hues and forms; Whereof Two that shone distinct, Linked as orbed stars are linked, Clear among the myriad swarms, In a constellation, dashed Full on horse and rider's eyes Sunless light, but light it was-- Light that blinded and abashed, Froze his members, bade him pause, Caught him mid-gallop, blazed him home. Attila, my Attila! What are streams that cease to flow? What was Attila, rolled thence, Cheated by a juggler's show? Like that lake of blue intense, Under tempest lashed to foam, Lurid radiance, as he passed, Filled him, and around was glassed, When deep-voiced he uttered, Rome!

XVII.

Rome! the word was: and like meat Flung to dogs the word was torn. Soon Rome's magic priests shall bleat Round their magic Pope forlorn! Loud they swore the king had sworn Vengeance on the Roman cheat, Ere he passed as, grave and still, Danube through the shouting hill: Sworn it by his naked life! Eagle, snakes these women are: Take them on the wing! but war, Smoking war's the warrior's wife! Then for plunder! then for brides Won without a winking priest!-- Danube whirled his train of tides Black toward the yellow East. Make the bed for Attila!

XVIII.

Chirrups of the trot afield, Hurrahs of the battle-charge, How they answered, how they pealed, When the morning rose and drew Bow and javelin, lance and targe, In the nuptial casement's view! Attila, my Attila! Down the hillspurs, out of tents Glimmering in mid-forest, through Mists of the cool morning scents, Forth from city-alley, court, Arch, the bounding horsemen flew, Joined along the plains of dew, Raced and gave the rein to sport, Closed and streamed like curtain-rents Fluttered by a wind, and flowed Into squadrons: trumpets blew, Chargers neighed, and trappings glowed Brave as the bright Orient's. Look on the seas that run to greet Sunrise: look on the leagues of wheat: Look on the lines and squares that fret Leaping to level the lance blood-wet. Tens of thousands, man and steed, Tossing like field-flowers in Spring; Ready to be hurled at need Whither their great lord may sling. Finger Romeward, Romeward, King! Attila, my Attila! Still the woman holds him fast As a night-flag round the mast.

XIX.