Part 2

And howl and shriek and moan and pass away, Leaving the world one whited death forlorn, When stir the slim-cold-fingered ghosts of grey The curtains of the morn.

SIR LANCELOT.

He rode, a king, amid the armoured knights, The glory of day tossing on helm and shield, And all the glory of his youth and joy, In the strong, wine-like splendour of his face. He rode among them, the one man of men, Their lordliest, loveliest, he who might have been, Because of very human breadth of love, And his glad, winning sympathy for earth, Greater than even Arthur under heaven.

Kindlier than the morning was his face, Swift, like the lightning, was his eagle glance, No bit of beauty earth had ever held, Of child or flower or dream of woman’s face, Or noble, passing godliness of mood, In man toward man, but garnered in his eye, As in some mere that gathereth all earth’s face, And foldeth it in beauty to its breast.

He rode among them, Arthur’s own right hand, Arthur, whom he loved as John loved Christ, And watched each day with joy that lofty brow Lift up its lonely splendour, isolate, Half god-like, o’er that serried host of spears, And knew his love the kingliest, holiest thing, ’Twixt man and man upon this glowing earth.

So passed those days of splendour and of peace, When all men loved his majesty and strength And kindliness of spirit which the king, Great Arthur, with his lofty coldness lacked. ’Twas Lancelot fought the mightiest in the lists, And beat with thunders back the brazen shields, And stormed the fastness of the farthest isles, Slaying the grizzly warriors of the meres, And winning all men’s fealty and love, And worship of fair women in the towers, Who laid their distaffs down to watch him pass; And made the hot blood mantle each fair cheek, With sweet sense of his presence, till all men Called Arthur half a god, and Lancelot The greatest heart that beat in his great realm.

Then came that fatal day that brake his life, When he, being sent of Arthur, all unknowing, Saw Guinevere, like some fair flower of heaven, As men may only see in dreams the gods Do send to kill the common ways of earth, And make all else but drear and dull and bleak; Such magic she did work upon his soul, Till Arthur, God and all the Table Round, Were but a nebulous mist before his eyes, In which the splendour of her beauty shone.

Henceforth the years would rise and wane and die, And glory come and glory pass away, And battles pass as in a troubled dream, And Arthur be a ghost, and his knights ghosts;— The castles and the lists and the mad fights, Sacking of cities, scourging of country-sides, All dreams before his eyes;—all, save her love.

So girded she her magic round his heart, And meshed him in a golden mesh of love, And marred his sense of all earth’s splendour there.

But in the after-days when brake the end, And she had fled to Glastonbury’s cells, With all the world one clamour at her sin; And Arthur like a storm-smit pine-tree stood, Alone amid his kingdom’s blackened ruins;— Then Lancelot knew his life an evil dream, And thought him of the friendship of their youth, And all the days that they had been together, And “Arthur, Arthur,” spake from all the meres, And “Arthur, Arthur,” moaned from days afar. And Lancelot grieved him of his woeful sin:— “And this the hand that smote mine Arthur down, That brake his glory, ruined his great hope Of one vast kingdom built on noble deeds, And truth and peace for many days to be. This hand that should have been his truest strength, Next to that high honour which he held.” And all the torrents of his sorrow brake For his own Arthur, Arthur standing lone, Like some unriven pine that towers alone Amid the awful ruins of a world. And then a woeful longing smote him there, To ride by murk and moon, by mere and waste, To where the king made battle with his foes, And look, unknown, upon his face, and die.

So thinking this he fled, and the queen’s wraith, A memory, in the moonlight fled with him. But stronger with him fled his gladder youth And all the memories of the splendid past, Until his heart yearned for the days that were, And that great, noble soul who fought alone.

Then coming by cock-crow and the glimmering dawn, He reached the grey-walled castle of the land, Where the king tarried ere he went to fight The last dread battle of the Table Round. And the grim sentinels who guarded there, Thinking only of him as Arthur’s friend, And knowing not the Lancelot scandal named, And judging by the sorrow of his face, Deemed him some knight who came to aid the king, And pointing past the waning beacon fires, Said, “There he sleeps as one who hath no woes.”

And Lancelot passing silent left them there, And entering the old abbey, (’twas some ruin Of piety and worship of past days,) Saw in the flicker of a dying hearth, Mingled with faint glimmering of the dawn, The great king sleeping, where a mighty cross Threw its dread shadow o’er his moving breast.

And Lancelot knew the same strong, god-like face That he had worshipped in the days no more, And all their olden gladness smote him now, And he had wept, but that his awful sin, That made a wall of flame betwixt them there, Had seared the very fountains of his soul. Whereat he moaned, “O, noble, saintly heart, Couldst thou but know amidst thine innocent sleep, Save for the awful sin that flames between, That here doth stand the Lancelot of old days, The one of all the world who loved thee most, The joyous friend of all thy glorious youth; O noble! god-like! Lancelot, who hath sinned As none hath sinned against thee, now hath come To gaze upon thy majesty and die. O Arthur! thou great Arthur of my youth, My sun, my joy, my glory!” Here the king Stirred in his sleep, and murmured, “Guinevere!”

And Lancelot feeling that an age of ages, Hoary with all anguish of old crime And hideous bloodshed, were now builded up Betwixt him and the king at that one name, Clothed with the mad despairings of his shame, Stole like some shrunken ghost-life from that place, To look no more upon great Arthur’s face.

Then it did smite upon him he must die; And in him the old ghost of honour woke That he must die in battle, and go out Where no dread sorrow could gnaw at his heart, But all forgetting and eternal sleep.

Whereat the madness of old battle woke, For his dread sin now burned all softness out, And the glad kindliness of the Table Round, And left him, shorn of all the Christian knight, The gentle lord who only smote to save, Or shield the helpless from the brutal stroke; And flamed his heart there with the lust to slay, And slaying be slain as his grim sires went out.

Then some far trumpet startled all the morn, Trembling westward from its dewy sleep. And with the day new battle woke the meres, And as a wood-wolf scents the prey afar, The noise of coming battle smote his ears, And woke in him the fierceness of his race, And the old pagan, joyous lust of fight. And crying, “Farewell, Arthur, mine old youth, Farewell, Lancelot, mine old kinder self, Lancelot, Arthur’s brother, lie there low, Slain with the glory wherewithal you fell, While this new Lancelot, new-bred of old time, Before the new hope of the loftier day, Before the reign of mercy and glad law, Thunders in old madness forth to war.” And as in some bleak ruin of a house Where all the sweet, home joys are ravaged out, And some grim, evil pack hath entered in To tear and snarl, so the old Lancelot passed.

And where he closed the battle’s fiercest shock Did hem him round, till as a mighty surf, That clamours, thundering round some seaward tower, Toward him the battle roared, and clanged his shield, And fast his blade went circling in the sun, Like some red, flaming wheel, where’er he went; Nor cared for friend or foe, so that he slew, And drank his cup of madness to the death. Till those he fought with dreamed a giant earl Of grim old days had come once more to earth, To fight anew the battles of his youth.

But some huge islesmen of the west were there: And they were fain to hew him down, and came Like swift, loud storm of autumn at him there. Then there grew clamour of the reddest fight That ever man beheld, and all outside Were stayed in awe to see that one man fight With that dread host of wilding warriors there. Nor stayed his awful brand, but left and right Whirled he its bloody flamings in the sun, And men went down as in October woods Do crash the mighty trunks before the blast, Till all were slain but one grim islesman left. But Lancelot by this was all one stream Of ruddy wounds, and like some fire his brain. And, with one awful shout of battle joy, He sent his sword-blade wheeling in the sun, And cleft that mighty islesman to the neck; And crying, “Arthur!” smote the earth, and died.

Then spread such terror over all the foe, That gods did fight with them there, that they fled. And all that day the battle moved afar, Out to the west by distant copse and mere, Till died the tumult, and the night came in, With mighty hush far over all that waste. And one by one the lonely stars came out, And over the meres the wintry moon looked down, Unmindful of poor Lancelot and his wounds, His dead, lost youth, the stillness of his face, And all that awful carnage silent there.

IN AUTUMN.

Season of the languorous gold, Season of the hazy drouth; When the nights are nipt and cold, And the birds go calling south, Over lakes and still lagoons, Through the long-tranced afternoons.

Out in frosty, crimsoning woods, When the afternoons are sunny, In sweet open solitudes Where the wild bee stores her honey, And the bright wood-carpenter Hammers at some dead old fir.

There the world forgets its woe, And the heart releases trouble, Where the drumming partridge go, Trailing underneath the stubble; While the golden afternoon Slopes and slants and sinks too soon.

Where broad rivers, brimmed with rains, Wind in sinuous blue for miles Through low, grassy meadow plains, Where the warm sun sifts and smiles, And great tented elms throw Shadows in cool depths below;—

Spirit in blue hazes clad, Maiden of the sunny mouth, When the airs grow still and sad, And the birds are calling south, And the far-off hills are blue, Here I love to dream with you;

Dream the olden days of yore, While the wind some haunted tune Flutes in gold-green leafy core Of the long-tranced afternoon; And my heart grows still and vast With long memories of the past.

UNABSOLVED.

A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE.

(This poem is founded on the confession of a man who went with one of the expeditions to save Sir John Franklin’s party, and who, being sent ahead, saw signs of them, but, through cowardice, was afraid to tell.)

O Father, hear my tale, then pity me, For even God His pity hath withdrawn. O death was dread and awful in those days! You prate of hell and punishment to come, And endless torments made for those who sin; Stern priest, put down your cross and hearken me;— I see forever a white glinting plain, From night to night across the twinkling dark, A world of cold and fear and dread and death, And poor lost ones who starve and pinch and die;— I could have saved them—I—yes, even I. You talk of hell! Is hell to see poor frames, Wan, leathery cheeks, and dull, despairing eyes, From whence a low-flamed madness ebbing out, Goes slowly deathward, through the eerie hours, To hear forever pitiless, icy winds Feel in the shivering canvas of the tent, With idle, brute curiosity nature hath, While out around, one universe of death, Stretches the loveless, hearthless arctic night?

This is my doom, it sitteth by my side, And never leaves me through the desolate years. Go, take your hell to men who never lived, Save as, the slow world wendeth, sluggish, dull.

Even they must suffer also, poor bleak ones, Then is your feeble comfort nothing worth. You tell me to have hope, God will forgive, O priest, can God forgive a sin like mine? You say He is all-loving, did He lie With me that night amid the eyeless dark, And writhe with me, and whisper, “Save thyself, That way to north lies cold and age and death, And awful failure on men’s awèd tongues, To linger years hereafter; Southward lies Home heat and love and sweet, blood-pulsing life— Life, with its morns and eves and glad to-morrow, And joy and hope for many days to be?”

Did He, I say, lie with me there that night, And know that awful tragedy beyond, And my poor tragedy enacted there? Then must He feel Him since as I have felt, And live that hideous misery in His heart. And knowing this, I say unto thee, priest, He could not be a God and say, forgive. You plead my soul’s salvation the one end And aim of all my thought, then hearken, priest, For this my sin hath made me more than wise;— That seems to me the one great sin I sinned In selling all to save mine evil self.

Stay, hearken, priest, and haunt me not with hopes, As futile as those icy-fingered winds That stirred the canvas there that arctic night. I bid thee hark and mumble not thy prayers Like August bees heard in a summer room, That drone afar, but keep them for the dead, The dull-eared dead who sleep and heed them not.

Then hearken, priest, and learn thee of my woe, For I have lain afar on northern nights, By star-filled wastes, and conned it o’er and o’er, And thought on God, and life, and many things, And all the baffling mystery of the dark. And I have held that awful rendezvous Of naked self with self alone and bare, And knew myself as men have never known;— Have fought the duel, flashing hilt to hilt, And blade to blade, of flesh and spirit there, Until I lay a weak and wounded thing, Like some poor, mangled bird the sportsman leaves, Writhing and twisting there amid the dark.

You talk of ladders leading up to light, Of windows bursting on the perfect day, Of dawns grown ruddy on the blackest night, Yea, I have groped about the muffled walls, And beat my spirit’s prison all in vain, Only to find them shrouded fold on fold; And still the cruel, icy stars look down, And my dread memory stayeth with me still. It was a strange, mad quest we went upon To seek the living in the lifeless north. For days and days, and long, lone, loveless nights, We set our faces toward the arctic sky, And threaded wastes of that lone wilderness, Beyond the lands of summer and glad spring, Beyond the regions kind of flower and bird, Past glint horizons of auroral gleams, A haunted world of winter’s wizened sleep, Where death, a giant, aged, and stark and wan, Kept fast the entrance of those sunless caves, Where hides the day beyond the icy seas.

Long day by day a desolation went Where our wan faces fared, o’er all that waste; And I was young and filled with love of life, And fear of ugly death as some weird black, The enemy of love and youth and joy;— A lonely, ruined bridge at edge of night, Fading in blackness at the outer end. And those were cold, stern men I went with there, Who held their lives as men do hold a gift Not worth the keeping; men who told dread tales, That made a madness in me of that waste And all its hellish, lonely solitude, And set my heart abeating for the south, Until that awful desolation ringed My reason round, and shrunk my fearful heart. Yea, Father, I had saved them but for this;— Why did they send me on alone, ahead, Poor me, the only weak one of that band, Who was too much of coward to show my fear? Why did life give me that mad fear of death, To make me selfish at the very last? Why did God give those men into my hand, And leave them victim to a craven fear That walked those lonely wastes in form of man?

No, Father, take your cross, mine is a pain That only distant ages can out-burn. Forgiveness! No, you know not what you say; You churchmen mumble words as charmers do, And talk of God and love so glib and pat, And think you reach men’s souls and give them light, When all the time my spirit is to you A land unfound, a region far-removed, Where walk dim ghosts of thoughts and fears and pains You never dreamed of. What know you of souls Like this of mine that hath girt misery’s sum, And found the black with which God veils His face. You say the church absolves, you speak of peace, You talk of what not even God can do Be He but what you make Him. In my light, And mine is light of one who knows the case, The facts, the reasons, and hath weighed them too, There is but one absolver, the absolved. For I, since that far, fatal, arctic night, Have been alone in some dread, shadowy court, Where I was judge and guilty prisoner too. Words, words are empty,—were life built on words, How rich the poor would grow, the weak be strong, The hateful loving, and the scornful weak, The king would be a peasant, and the poor A king in his own right; the murderer, red From his foul guilt, would pass to God’s own breast, And all damned things, long damned of earth’s consent, And some dread law, much older far than we, Would blossom righteous under heaven’s face.

Ofttimes I think you churchmen do not feel; You wear a mask and mumble petty hopes, And show a righteous patronage of scorn Toward all poor creatures who have shown life’s sting; And all the while, you of you who are men, And not mere walking, feeding, lusting swine, Mere mocks of human that do play a part, Are but behind the mask a living death, A muffled night that murmurs of the light, A dread despair where lips have muttered hope.

Still fared we north across that frozen waste Of icy horror ringed with awful night, To seek the living in a world of death; And as we fared a terror grew and grew About my heart like madness, till I dreamed A vague desire to flee by night and creep, By steel-blue, windless plain and haunted wood, And wizened shore and headland, once more south.

There as we went the days grew wan and shrunk, And nights grew vast and weird and beautiful, Walled with flame-glories of auroral light, Ringing the frozen world with myriad spears Of awful splendour there across the night. And ever anon a shadowy, spectral pack Of gleaming eyes and panting, lurid tongues Haunted the lone horizon toward the south.

Then life ebbed lower in the bravest heart, And spake the leader, “If in ten more days We chance on nothing, then will we return, And set our faces once more to the south.” For that dread land began to close us in, With cold and hunger, bit at our poor limbs, Till life grew there a feeble, flickering flame, Amid the snows and ice-floes of that land. Then ten days crept out shrunk and grey and wan, With nothing but the lonely, haunted waste. Then spake the leader, “If in five more days!” Then parcelled out those five grey, haggard days, While life to me grew like an ebbing tide, That surged far out from some dread death-like strand. And horror came upon me like the night, That seemed to gird the world in desolate walls. Then spake the leader, “If in three more days!”

But when the third day waned we came, at last, Unto the shores of some dread, lonely sea, That gloomed to north and night, and far beyond, Where ruined straits and headlands loomed and sank, There seemed the awful endings of the world.

Then spake the leader, “Let us go not yet, But stay a little ere we turn us south, Perchance, poor souls, they might be somewhere here.” And then to me, “You go, for you are young And strong, and life throbs quickest in your veins, And you have eyes more strong to see, for ours Are dimmed by the dread frost-mists of this land; And creep out there beyond yon gleaming ledge, And bring me word of what you there may see. And if you meet no sign of mast or sail, Or hull or wreck, or mark of living soul, Then we will turn our faces to the south; For this great ocean’s vastness hems us in, And death here nightly creeps from strand to strand, And binds with girth of black the gleaming world.”

Then whispering “Madness, madness,” to the dark, I crept me fearful o’er that gleaming ledge, And saw but night and awful gulfs of dark, And weird ice-mountains looming desolate there, And far beyond the vastness of that sea. And then—O God, why died I not that hour? Amid the gleaming floes far up that shore, So far it seemed that man’s foot scarce could go, The certain, tapering outline of a mast, And one small patch of rag; and then I felt No man could ever live to reach that place, And horror seized me of that haunted world, That I should die there and be froze for aye, Amid the ice-core of its awful heart.

Then crept I back the weak ghost of a life, A miserable, shaking, coffined fear, And spake, “I saw but ice and winds and dark, And the dread vastness of that desolate sea.” Again he spake, “Creep out once more and look, Perchance your sight was misled by the gleam.” And then once more I crept out on that ledge, And saw again the night and awful dark, And that poor beckoning mast that haunts me yet; And as I lay those moments seemed to grow, As men have felt in looking down long years, And there I chose “’twixt evil and the good,” And took the evil; then began my hell, And back I crept with that black lie on lips, And spake again, “I only saw the night, And those weird mountains and the awful deep.”

At that he moaned and spake, “Poor souls! Poor souls! Then they are doomed if ever men were doomed.” Whereat a sudden, great auroral flame Filled all the heaven, lighting wastes and sea, And came a wondrous shock across the world, Like sounds of far-off battle where hosts die, As if God thundered back mine awful lie, And I fell in a heap where all was black.

When next I lived we were full three days south, And two had died upon that dreadful march; Then memory came, and I went laughing mad, But kept mine awful secret to this hour.

No, priest, you can do nothing, pain like mine Must smoulder out in its own agony, Till there be nought but ashes at the last.