Part 5

The May itself, in soft sea-green, Is Oriana, Spring's high queen, And Amadis beside her seen, Some prince of Fairy stories: Where her castle's ivied towers Drowse above her woods and bowers, Flaps the heron through the sky, And the wild-swan gives a cry By knightly Miraflores.

ORLANDO

SUGGESTED BY ARIOSTO'S "ORLANDO FURIOSO"

I

When southern winds sowed woods and skies, Angelica! With bloom-storms of the flowering May; When hill and battle-field were gay With peace and purity of flowers, I sat to dream Beside a stream amid the bowers, Clear as the deeps of thy blue eyes: And near the stream I saw a grotto banked with flowers, From which the streamlet fell in showers, Cool-sparkling through the sunlit bowers, Angelica!

II

My casque I dofft to scoop the fount, Angelica! With liquid pureness bubbling cool It rose--then clashed into the pool ... Thy name I saw, hewn in the rock! And under it ... Ah no! I dreamed! my eyes did mock My senses!... Then I seemed to count, All fire-lit, The letters! deep, carved in the rock! _Medoro_ carved in every rock!-- My brain went round like some wild clock, Angelica!

III

O treachery! O lust of blood! Angelica! That one so fair should be so vile! No more for me again shall smile The brows of Beauty! As of old, With clarion call, No more shall Battle make me bold! Or Chivalry fire my soul!... The wood,-- Away from all, From love and lust,--shall house and hold My misery!... The dawn breaks cold! And I lie naked on the wold, Angelica!

YOLANDA OF THE TOWERS

Old forests belt and bar Her towering battlements; And all the west, with crest on crest, The blue o' the hills indents.

Her garden's terrace cliffs That soar above a sea Dreamier and fuller of shadowy color Than sunset's mystery.

And league on league of coast, Sand-ribbed of wind and wave, Rolls dim and far with reef and bar And many an ocean cave.

The morning,--bright with beams And sea-winds,--wakes the day; Its breezy lutes and foamy flutes Make music on the bay.

The deer are roused from rest; The sea-birds breast the brine; And from the steep wild torrents leap Foaming 'neath rock and vine.

But she, in one tall tower, High built above the tide, In her heart a thorn, turns from the morn, Wan-faced and weary-eyed.

Long, long she looks a-sea, As one who seeks a sail: But on her view the empty blue Beats and her eyelids quail.

She turns and slowly goes Down from her sea-gray towers, To walk and weep, like one asleep, Among the salt-slain flowers.

Until the sun is set, And crocus heavens, grown cold, Leave all their light to the new moon's white And one star's point of gold.

Until a breeze from sea Sets in, of balm and spice And streams amid the stars, half-hid, Thin mists as white as ice.

And then her eyes grow large With hate or one last hope, And again she bends her gaze where blends The sea with heaven's slope.

But naught the night reveals, The night that seems to weep And shudder down two stars, that drown Themselves within the deep.

Then to herself she says, Softly, "Ah God! to know No death or shame is his, or blame, Who brought on me this woe!

"What though I know that Hell At last will have its own; It will not heal my soul, I feel, Though there he wail and moan.

"Could I his carrion see, On yonder crag's wild crest, Hung up to rot, a traitor's lot, My soul might find some rest!"...

And this is she God made Of sunlight and of flowers For love and kisses and fond caresses-- Yolanda of the Towers.

ERMENGARDE

Queen of the Courts of Love, she sleeps; one arm Pillowing her raven hair, as Dawn might Night, Or Day kiss Dusk; or Darkness, starry warm, Be gathered of her sister, rosy Light.

Pale from the purple of the damask cloth One hand hangs, as a lily-bloom might, lone Above a bed of poppies; or a moth Might softly hover by a rose full-blown.

Heraldic, rich, the costly coverings Sweep, fall'n in folds, pushed partly from her breast; As through storm-broken clouds the full moon springs, From these one orb of her pure bosom pressed.

She sleeps: and where the moteless moonbeams sink Through blazoned panes--an immaterial snow-- In wide, white jets, the lion-fur seems to drink With tawny jaws their wasted, winey glow.

Light-lidded sleep and holy dreams are hers, Untouched of feverish sorrow or of care, Soft as the wind whose fragrant breathing stirs The moonbeam-tangled tresses of her hair.

HACKELNBERG

I

When down the Hartz the echoes swarm, He rides beneath the mountain storm With mad "halloo!" and wild alarm Of hound and horn and thunder: With his hunter, black as night, Ban-dogs, eyed with lambent light; And a stag, a spectral white, Rushes on before, in flight Glimmering through the boughs and under.

II

Long-howling, crouched in bracken black, The werewolf shuns his ruinous track, On every side the forests crack, And mountain torrents tumble: And the spirits of the air Whistling whirl with scattered hair, Teeth that flash and eyes that glare, Round him as he gallops there, In the rain and tempest's rumble.

III

Above the storm, the thunder's growl, The torrent's roar, the forest's howl, Is heard his hunting-horn--an owl, That hoots and sweeps before him: And beneath the blinding leven, On wild crags, the Castle riven Of the Dumburg towers to heaven, Beckoning on the demon-driven, Beckoning on and looming o'er him.

AN ANTIQUE

Mildewed and gray a marble stair Leads to a balustrade of urns, Beyond which two stone satyrs glare From vines and close-clipped yews and ferns.

A path, that winds and labyrinths, 'Twixt parallels of verdant box, Around a lodge whose mossy plinths Are based on emerald-colored rocks.

A lodge, or ancient pleasure-house, Built in a grove beside a lake, Around whose edge the dun deer browse, And swans their snowy pastime take.

And underneath and overhead,-- The breathings of a water-nymph It seems,--the violets' scent is shed Mixed with the music of the lymph.

And where,--upon its pedestal,-- The old sun-dial marks the hours, Laburnum blossoms lightly fall, And duchess roses rain their flowers.

The air is languid with perfume, As if dead beauties--who of old Intrigued it here in patch and plume-- Again the ancient terrace strolled

With gallants, on whose rapiers gems Once sneered in haughtiness of hues, While Touchstone wit and apothegms Laughed down the long cool avenues:

And there, where bowers of woodbine pave, All heavily with sultry musk, Two fountains of pellucid wave, In sunlight-tessellated dusk,

I seem to see the fountains twain Of Hate and Love in Arden, where, In times of regal Charlemagne, Great Roland drank and Oliver.

Where, wandered from Montalban's towers, The paladin, Rinaldo, slept, While, leaning o'er him through the flowers, Angelica above him wept.

JAAFER THE BARMECIDE

_Scene, Baghdad: time of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid. Salih ben Tarif speaks._

With Imam Hassan I had reached the khan Outside of Ambar. Jaafer at the door Of his pavilion watched a caravan Inbound from Yemen.--Ah, the bales it bore Of richest stuffs and spices!--'Mid the rout Of porters, camel-drivers, old and poor, A singer stood,--a blindman, singing out With luted preludes. Imam Hassan then: "'Tis Zekkar; he, t' whom, with the blind about The Mosque of Moons, I with our holy men Scattered my silver at the hour of prayer, When hearts are open unto Allah's ken.-- Danic or dirhem, though, were wasted there: Yea, by the Prophet! had one sown dinars _He_ had not budged one finger or that stare. And so the beggars and the scavengers Got all." Then I: "The very same whom I-- Guard at the Western Portal--'neath the stars Some midnights past heard singing. Dim the dry Hot night; and Baghdad only knew of us Until, gray shadows shuffling slowly by, Pilgrims for Mecca passed, all vaporous In dust and darkness; them we challenged not. --Slaves, with the tribute of Nicephorus The Roman, from long shallops, as they shot Along the moonlit Tigris far away, Timing their oars, raised languid chanting.-- What This blindman sang was sweeter than--let's say-- The songs of Ibrahim, the dulcet frets Of Zulzul's lute. I listened till the day Made gold of all the city's minarets, And the muezzin summoned us to pray."

Now while we gossiped, lounging slow along The packed bazaar, a fisher with his nets Passed, singing Abou Newas' newest song: A honey-merchant, then, his tinkling mule All hanap-hung with sweetness: then a throng Of scholars and their Sheikh from mosque or school: A milk-white woman on a cream-white ass, Black slaves attending.... And--I am no fool!-- I knew her of the Court, the noblest class, By her gem-bangled bracelets.... Let Haroun On the Euphrates with Zubeideh pass A single day, at royal Rekkeh,--noon And night his harem here, so it is said, Is all intrigue.--Then drawling out his tune, "Ten thousand pieces to be paid, be paid, For Yehya's head, Er Reshid's late vizier," A crier passed us. Then the market's shade Glittered with weapons; and we seemed to hear, Sword of the Khalif, Mesrour, and commands Naming the Khalif. One swart officer Flamed forth the Sultan's signet. And harsh hands Were laid on--whom?--I saw not! For my sight Was dazzled by the scimitars,--from bands Of jeweled belts that burned,--and, keen and bright, Swift hedged us out. Then broad the red blood dyed The ground around a body--and, hoar white, Was raised a severed head.--And, stupefied, Elbowing the rabble, "By my beard!" I cried, Marking the face, "Jaafer the Barmecide!"

A PRE-EXISTENCE.

An intimation of some previous life? Or dark dream--by my waking soul divined-- Of some uncertain sleep? in which the sin Of some past life, a life that some one lived-- Not I, yet I,--long, long ago in Spain, I live again.... Wherein again I see From heathen battles to Toledo's gates,-- Damascened corselet broken, his camail And armet shattered,--deep within the eve's Anger of brass, that burned around his helm, A hurrying flame,--a galloping glitter,--one Ride arrow-wounded. And the city catch Wild tumult from his coming, wilder fear-- A cry before him and a wail behind, Of walls beleaguered; ravin; conquered kings: Triumphant Taric; shackled Spain--revenge.

And I, a Moslem slave, a miser Jew's, Housed near the Tagus--squalid and alone, Save for his slave,--a dog he beat and starved,-- Leaner than my lank shadow when the moon, A battle beacon, westerns; all my bones A visible hunger; famished with the fear, Soul-garb of slaves, I bore him--I, who held Him, heart and soul, more hated than his God, Stood silent. Fools had laughed. I saw my way.

War-times grow weapons, and the blade I found Was hacked but pointed.--Well I knew his ways: The nightly nuptials of his jars of gems And bags of doublas.--Well I knew his ways. No figure, woven in the hangings, where He hugged his riches in that secret room, Was half so still as I, who gauntly stole Behind him, humped and stooping; and his heart Clove to the center, stabbing from behind, Thrice thro' his tattered tunic, murrey-dyed. Forward he fell, his old face 'mid his gold, Grayer and thinner than the moon of morn, While slow the blood dripped, oozing through the cloth, Black, and thick-clotting round the oblong wounds. Great pearls of Oman, whiter than the moon; Rubies of Badakhshân, whose bezels wept Slim tears of poppy-purpled flame; and rich, Rose, ember-pregnant carbuncles, wherein Fevered a captive crimson, blurred with light The table's raven cloth. Dim bugles wan Of cat-eyed hyacinths; moon-emeralds With starry greenness stabbed; in limpid stains Of liquid lilac, Persian amethysts; Fire-opals, savage and mesmeric with Voluptuous flame, long, sweet and sensuous as Deep eyes of Orient women; sapphires beamed With talismanic violet, from tombs, Deev-guarded, of primordial Solimans, Scattered the velvet: and like gledes amid,-- Splintering the light from rainbow-arrowed orbs,-- Length-agonized with fire, diamonds of Golconda.... (One a dervish once had borne Seven days, beneath a red Arabian sun, Seven nights, beneath a round Arabian moon, Under his tongue; an Emeer's ransom, held Of some wild tribe.--Bleached in the perishing waste, A Bedouin Arab found sand-strangled bones, A skeleton, vulture-torn, fierce in whose skull One eyeball blazed--the diamond. At Aleppo Bartered ... a bauble for his desert love.) Jacinth and Indian pearl, gem heaped on gem, Flashed, rutilating in the taper's light,-- Unearthly splinters of a rainbowed flame,-- A blaze of irised fire; and his face, Long-haired, white-sunk among them. And I took All! yea! all! all!--jewel and gold and gem!-- Although his curse burned in them! 'though, me-seemed, Each burning jewel glared a separate curse.

* * * * *

Can dead men work us evil from the grave? Can crime infest us so that fear will slay?... Richer than all Castile and yet--not dare Drink but from cups of Roman murra,--spar Bowl-sprayed with fibrile gold,--spar sensitive To poison! I, no fool! and yet--a fool To fear a dead Jew's malice!... Yet, how else? Feasting within the music of my halls, While perfumed beauty danced in sinuous robes, Diaphanous, more tenuous than those famed Of loomed Amorgos or of silken Kos, Draining the unflawed murrhine, Xeres-brimmed, Had I reeled poisoned, dying wolf'sbane-slain!

THE KING

Up from the glimmering east the full moon swung, A golden bubble buoyed zenithward Above black hills. The white-eyed stars, that thronged,-- Hot with the drought,--the cloudless slopes of heaven, Winked thirstily; no wind aroused the leaves, That o'er the glaring road hung motionless, Withered and whitened of the weary dust From many hoofs of many a fellowship Of knights who rode to'ards quest or tournament: Among them those who brought the King disguised, Whose mind was, "in the lists to joust and be An equal 'mid unequals, man to man:" Who from the towers of Edric passed, wherein Some days he'd sojourned, waiting Launcelot: That morn it was; ... for, with the morn, a horn Sang at dim portals, musical with dew, Wild echoes of wild woodlands and the hunt, Clear herald of the stanchest of his knights. And they, to the great tilt at Camelot, Rode armored off, a noise of steel and steeds.

Thick in the stagnant moat the lilies lay, Pale 'mid their pads; above them, huge with chains, The drawbridge hung before the barbéd grate; And far above, along lone battlements, His armor moon-drenched, one lone sentinel Clanked drowsily; and it was late in June.

She, at her lattice, loosely night-robed, leaned, Thinking of one she loved: a pensive smile Haunting her face; a face as fair as night's, Night's when divinely beautiful with stars, Two stars, at least, that dreamed beneath her brows. Long, raven loops and coils of sensuous hair Rolled turbulence round white-glimpsed neck and throat, That shamed the moonlight with a rival sheen.

One stooped above her; and his nostrils breathed Heavy perfumes that blossomed in her hair; And round her waist hooped one strong arm and drew Her mightily to him, soft crushing,--cool With yielding freshness of her form,--her gown; Then searched her eyes until his own seemed drunk And mad with passion: then one hungry kiss Bruised, hard as anger, on her breathless lips, Fiercer than fire. Leaning lower, then A whispered, "Lov'st but one? and he?"--And then, She, with impatience, "Rough and rude thou art! Why crush me, thou great bear, with such a hug! Or kill me with such kisses!"--Then, as soft As some rich rose syllabling musk and dew, "And whom I love?--ah, Edric, need I say!"...

Then he, fierce-smiling, swiftly, without word, His countenance harsh-writhen into hate's Gnarled hideousness, haled back her marvelous head, Back, back by all its braids of gathered hair, Till her full bosom's clamorous loveliness Stark on the moon burst bare. Low leaning then, With mocking laughter, "Yea, by God's own blood! The King, O thou adulteress!" and a blade Glanced, thin as ice, plunged hard, hard in her heart.

MELANCHOLIA

"_Jamque vale Soli cum diceret Ambrociotes, In Stygios fertur desiluisse lacus, Morte nihil dignum passus: sed forte Platonis Divini eximum de nece legit opus._"

--Callimachus.

I

Now there was wind that night, wild wind, and rain; And frantic thorns, that huddled on the wold, Seemed withered witches met in storm again To keep their Sabbath and to curse and scold, With gnarled, fantastic gestures, lame and old. Deep in a hollow, where some cabin lay, A lamplit window, like an eye of gold, Glared, winked and closed--or was't an Elfin ray, A jack-o'-lanthorn gleam, lost on a wild wood way?

II

Still I held onward through the ugly night; Breast-deep in thistles, all their ghostly heads Kinked close with wet; through the bedraggled plight Of brakes of bramble, tousled into shreds, And tangled wastes of briars--tumbling beds For winds to toss on.--Once, across a farm, Unsteadily, a lamp towards unseen sheds,-- Like the blurred glow of some ungainly worm,-- A watery wisp of light crawled trailing through the storm.

III

Then swallowing blackness of the night; and thin The shrewd rain beat me and the rough limbs whipped Of dwarfed, uneasy beeches. There within Their savage circle battered tombstones tipped Squat lengths to weeds the fighting winds had ripped And chopped to tatters. And I heard before, Rounding a headland, where the gaunt trees dripped,-- A shout borne deathward from night's ghastly shore,-- Hoarse as a thousand throats the river's sullen roar.

IV

Shuddering I stopped, for, with my feet so caked With clay, damp-dragging, safer were the graves, Crowding that vista of the wood,--which raked My face with burrs,--than, walking towards the waves, To feel earth slip away; the architraves Of darkness plunge me downward to some pit Of wallow and of water.--Madder knaves Than I have stood thus in a fever-fit Of heart and brain and shuddered from the brink of it.

V

Wooingly silence whispered to me there Through boughs of dripping darkness sad with rain; Darkness, that met my eyeballs everywhere, Blind-packed and vacant as a madman's brain. And so I stood and heard the dead leaves drain, And through the leaves the haunted wind that hissed; Then suddenly--perhaps it was the strain Snapped in my temples--laughter seemed to twist, With evil, night's dead mouth that bent to mine and kissed.

VI

Insanity! two leaves that dabbled down, Touched me with drizzle; and that laugh--ah, well, No laugh! an owlet hooting at the frown Night's hag-face tortures while she works her spell. Yet I had sworn, before those kisses fell Like winter on me, black as broken jet, An occult blackness like the Prince of Hell, A woman's hand had brushed my face--and yet, A bat it might have been made mad with wind and wet.

VII

And stark I stood among the sodden stones, Icy with fever, hearing in each gale Strange footsteps,--while within my soul were moans For strength,--as powerless as I was pale. Then I remembered that within a tale Once I had read--a chronicle of ills Cowled monks had written--how one shall not fail To find, unsought, the Fiend, if so he wills, Cloak, cap, and cock's crook'd plume among the lonely hills.

VIII

Was _that_ his laugh? and _that_ his vulture hand?-- No! no! for in the legend it was said, "Though moonless midnight curse the barren land Sathanas' shadow follows him as red As Hell's red cauldron is."--My terror fled, Remembering this.--How sad a fool was I To dream Hell's wickedness would bow his head By mine, and parley with me, lie for lie, With cunning scrutiny of oblong eye by eye!

IX

Then, then I felt--_her_ presence! all awake Unto her power that could lift or sink; And her straight eyes controlling, like an ache, My brain that had no mastery to think, Or to perform. And slowly, link on link, She bound me helpless, like an inquisitor, In vasty dungeons of the soul; no wink Of light was there, but darkness, bar on bar, Self-convoluted chaos strangling will's high star.

X

"I am the mother of uneaseful sleep, The child of night and sister of dim death; Who knoweth me, yea, he shall never weep, Yet bless and ban me in a single breath: Who knoweth me a coward is unneth: And saddest hearts have sought me over glad To find gray comfort where the preacher saith There is no comfort. Melancholy mad, Reach me thy hand and know me if thy heart be sad."

XI

Thus did she speak. Her voice was like a flame

Of burning blackness. Then I felt the throb Of her still hand in mine. And so I came Gladly unto her. Yea, I, too, would rob Time of his triumphs.--Who would groan and sob Beneath his fardels, hearing sad men sigh When here is cure?--for Life, that, like a lob, Rides us to death; for Love, a godless lie; And Toil and Hunger.--Yea, what fool would fear to die?

XII

Then seemed I wrapped in rolling mists, and, oh, Her arm was round me and her kisses dear On eyes and lips, and words that none may know-- What words of promise said she in mine ear! Drunk with her beauty still I felt no fear, When, past the forest, like some bounding brute, I heard the river roaring. Drawing near, Again she whispered, and my soul grew mute Before her voice that lulled like music of a lute:

XIII