PART IV.

Sir Elvar is the fairest knight That ever lured a lady's glance; Sir Elvar is the wealthiest lord That sits at good King Arthur's board; The bravest in the joust or fight, The lightest in the dance.

And never love, methinks, so blest As his, this weary world has known; For, every night before his eyes, The charms that ne'er can fade arise-- A star unseen by all the rest-- A Life for him alone.

And yet Sir Elvar is not blest-- He walks apart with brows of gloom-- "The meanest knight in Arthur's hall His lady-love may tell to all; He shows the flower that glads his breast-- His pride to boast its bloom!

"And I who clasp the fairest form That e'er to man's embrace was given, Must hide the gift as if in shame! What boots a prize we dare not name? The sun must shine if it would warm-- A cloud is all my heaven!"

Much proud Genevra[C] marvell'd, how A knight so fair should seem so cold; What if a love for hope too high, Has chain'd the lip and awed the eye? A second joust--and surely now The secret shall be told.

For, _there_, alone shall ride the brave Whose glory dwells in Beauty's fame; Each, for his lady's honour, arms-- His lance the test of rival charms. Joy unto him whom Beauty gave The right to gild her name!

Sir Lancelot burns to win the prize-- First in the Lists his shield is seen; A sunflower for device he took-- "_Where'er thou shinest turns my look._" So as he paced the Lists, his eyes Still sought the Sun--his Queen!

"And why, Sir Elvar, loiterest thou?-- Lives there no fair thy lance to claim?" No answer Elvar made the King; Sullen he stood without the ring. "Forwards!" An armed whirlwind now On horse and horseman came!

And down goes princely Caradoc-- Down Tristan and stout Agrafrayn,-- Unscath'd, alone, amidst the field, Great Lancelot bears his victor-shield; The sunflower bright'ning through the shock, And through that iron rain.

"Sound, trumpets--sound!--to South and North! I, Lancelot of the Lake, proclaim, That never sun and never air, Or shone or breathed on form so fair As hers--thrice, trumpets, sound it forth!-- Our Arthur's royal dame!"

And South and North, and West and East, Upon the thunder-blast it flies! Still on his steed sits Lancelot, And even echo answers not; Till, as the stormy challenge ceased, A voice was heard--"He lies!"

All turn'd their mute, astonish'd gaze, To where the daring answer came, And lo! Sir Elvar's haughty crest!-- Fierce on the knight the gazers press'd;-- Their wands the sacred Heralds raise,-- Genevra weeps for shame.

"Sir Knight," King Arthur smiling said (In smiles a king should wrath disguise), "Know'st thou, in truth, a dame so fair, Our Queen may not with her compare? Genevra, weep, and hide thy head-- Sir Lancelot, yield the prize."

"O, grace, my liege, for surely each The dame he serves should peerless hold, To loyal eye and faithful breast The loved one is the loveliest." The King replied, "Not crafty speech-- Bold deeds--excuse the bold!

"So name thy fair, defend her right! A list!--Ho Lancelot, guard thy shield. Her name?"--Sir Elvar's visage fell: "A vow forbids the name to tell." "Now out upon the recreant Knight Who courts yet shuns the field!

"Foul shame, were royal name disgraced By some light leman's taunting smile! Whoe'er--so run the tourney's laws-- Would break a lance in Beauty's cause, Must name the Highborn and the Chaste-- The nameless are the vile."

Sir Elvar glanced, where, stern and high, The scornful champion rein'd his steed; Where o'er the Lists the seats were raised, And jealous dames disdainful gazed, He glanced, nor caught one gentle eye-- Courts grow not friends at need:

"King! I have said, and keep my vow." "Thy vow! I pledge thee mine in turn, Ere the third sun shall sink,--or bring A fair outshining yonder ring, Or find mine oath as thine is now Inflexible and stern.

"Thy sword, unmeet to serve the right,-- Thy spurs, unfit for churls to wear, Torn from thee;--through the crowd, which heard Our Lady weep at vassal's word, Shall hiss the hoot,--'Behold the knight, Whose lips belie the fair!'

"Three days I give; nor think to fly Thy doom; for on the rider's steed, Though to the farthest earth he ride,-- Disgrace once mounted, clings beside; And Mockery's barbed shafts defy Her victim's swiftest speed."

Far to the forest's stillest shade, Sir Elvar took his lonely way: Beneath the oak, whose gentle frown Still dimm'd the noon, he laid him down, And saw the Fount that through the glade Sang sparkling up to day.

Alas, in vain his heart address'd, With sighs, with prayers, his elfin bride;-- What though the vow conceal'd the name, Did not the boast the charms proclaim? The spell has vanish'd from his breast, The fairy from his side.

Oh, not for vulgar homage made, The holier beauty form'd for one; It asks no wreath the arm can win; Its lists--its world--the heart within; All love, if sacred, haunts the shade-- The star shrinks from the sun!

Three days the wand'rer roved in vain; Uprose the fatal dawn at last! The Lists are set, the galleries raised, And, scorn'd by all the eyes that gazed, Alone he fronts the crowd again, And hears the sentence pass'd.

Now, as, amidst the hooting scorn, Rude hands the hard command fulfil, While rings the challenge--"Sun and air Ne'er shone, ne'er breathed, on form so fair As Arthur's Queen,"--a single horn Came from the forest hill.

A note so distant and so lone, And yet so sweet,--it thrill'd along, It hush'd the Champion on his steed, Startled the rude hands from their deed, Charm'd the stern Arthur on his throne, And still'd the shouting throng.

To North, to South, to East, and West, They turn'd their eyes; and o'er the plain, On palfrey white, a Ladye rode; As woven light her mantle glow'd. Two lovely shapes, in azure dress'd, Walk'd first, and led the rein.

The crowd gave way, as onward bore That vision from the Land of Dreams; Veil'd was the gentle rider's face, But not the two her path that grace. How dim beside the charms they wore All human beauty seems!

So to the throne the pageant came, And thus the Fairy to the King: "Not unto thee for ever dear, By minstrel's song, to knighthood's ear Beseems the wrath that wrongs the vow, Which hallows ev'n a name.

"Bloom there no flowers more sweet by night? Come, Queen, before the judgment throne; Behold Sir Elvar's nameless bride! Now, Queen, his doom thyself decide." She raised her veil,--and all her light Of beauty round them shone!

The bloom, the eyes, the locks, the smile, That never earth nor time could dim;-- Day grew more bright, and air more clear, As Heaven itself were brought more near.-- And oh! _his_ joy, who felt, the while, That light but glow'd for him!

"My steed, my lance, vain Champion, now To arms: and Heaven defend the right!"-- Here spake the Queen, "The strife is past," And in the Lists her glove she cast, "And I myself will crown thy brow, Thou love-defended Knight!"

He comes to claim the garland crown; The changeful thousands shout his name; And faithless beauty round him smiled, How cold, beside the Forest's Child, Who ask'd not love to bring renown, And clung to love in shame!

He bears the prize to those dear feet: "Not mine the guerdon! oh, not mine!" Sadly the fated Fairy hears, And smiles through unreproachful tears; "Nay, keep the flowers, and be they sweet When I--no more am thine!"

She lower'd the veil, she turn'd the rein, And ere his lips replied, was gone. As on she went her charmed way, No mortal dared the steps to stay: And when she vanish'd from the plain All space seem'd left alone!

Oh, woe! that fairy shape no more Shall bless thy love nor rouse thy pride! He seeks the wood, he gains the spot-- The Tree is there, the Fountain not;-- Dried up:--its mirthful play is o'er. Ah, where the Fairy Bride?

Alas, with fairies as with men, Who love are victims from the birth! A fearful doom the fairy shrouds, If once unveil'd by day to crowds. The Fountain vanish'd from the glen, The Fairy from the earth!

[A] As the subject of this tale is suggested by one of the Fabliaux, the author has represented Arthur and Guenever, according to the view of their characters taken in those French romances--which he hopes he need scarcely say is very different from that taken in his maturer Poem upon the adventures and ordeal of the Dragon King.

[B] "With hair that gilds the water as it glides."--MARLOWE, Edw. II.

[C] As Guenever is often called Genevra in the French romances, the latter name is here adopted for the sake of euphony.

THE BEACON.

I.

How broad and bright athwart the wave, Its steadfast light the Beacon gave! Far beetling from the headland shore, The rock behind, the surge before,-- How lone and stern and tempest-sear'd, Its brow to Heaven the turret rear'd! Type of the glorious souls that are The lamps our wandering barks to light, With storm and cloud round every star, The Fire-Guides of the Night!

II.

How dreary was that solitude! Around it scream'd the sea-fowl's brood; The only sound, amidst the strife Of wind, and wave, that spoke of life, Except when Heaven's ghost-stars were pale, The distant cry from hurrying sail. From year to year the weeds had grown O'er walls slow-rotting with the damp; And, with the weeds, decay'd, alone, The Warder of the lamp.

III.

But twice in every week from shore Fuel and food the boatmen bore; And then so dreary was the scene, So wild and grim the warder's mien, So many a darksome legend gave Awe to that Tadmor of the wave, That scarce the boat the rock could gain, Scarce heaved the pannier on the stone, Than from the rock and from the main, Th' unwilling life was gone.

IV.

A man he was whom man had driven To loathe the earth and doubt the heaven; A tyrant foe (beloved in youth) Had call'd the law to crush the truth; Stripp'd hearth and home, and left to shame The broken heart--the blacken'd name. Dark exile from his kindred, then, He hail'd the rock, the lonely wild: Upon the man at war with men The frown of Nature smiled.

V.

But suns on suns had roll'd away; The frame was bow'd, the locks were grey: And the eternal sea and sky Seem'd one still death to that dead eye; And Terror, like a spectre, rose From the dull tomb of that repose. No sight, no sound, of human-kind; The hours, like drops upon the stone! What countless phantoms man may find In that dark word--"ALONE!"

VI.

Dreams of blue Heaven and Hope can dwell With Thraldom in its narrowest cell; The airy mind may pierce the bars, Elude the chain, and hail the stars: Canst thou no drearier dungeon guess In _space_, when space is loneliness? The body's freedom profits none, The heart desires an equal scope; All nature is a gaol to one Who knows nor love nor hope!

VII.

One day, all summer in the sky, A happy crew came gliding by, With songs of mirth, and looks of glee-- A human sunbeam o'er the sea! "O Warder of the Beacon," cried A noble youth, the helm beside, "This summer-day how canst thou bear To guard thy smileless rock alone, And through the hum of Nature hear No heart-beat, save thine own?"

VIII.

"I cannot bear to live alone, To hear no heart-heat, save my own; Each moment, on this crowded earth, The joy-bells ring some new-born birth; Can ye not spare one form--but one, The lowest--least beneath the sun, To make the morning musical With welcome from a human sound?" "Nay," spake the youth,--"and is that all? Thy comrade shall be found."

IX.

The boat sail'd on, and o'er the main The awe of silence closed again; But in the wassail hours of night, When goblets go their rounds of light, And in the dance, and by the side Of her, yon moon shall mark his bride, Before that Child of Pleasure rose, The lonely rock--the lonelier one, A haunting spectre--till he knows The human wish is won!

X.

Low-murmuring round the turret's base Wave glides on wave its gentle chase; Lone on the rock, the warder hears The oar's faint music--hark! it nears-- It gains the rock; the rower's hand Aids a gray, time-worn form to land. "Behold the comrade sent to thee!" He said--then went. And in that place The Twain were left; and Misery And Guilt stood face to face!

XI.

Yes, face to face _once more_ array'd, Stood the Betrayer--the Betray'd! Oh, how through all those gloomy years, When Guilt revolves what Conscience fears, Had that wrong'd victim breathed the vow _That if but face to face_--And now, There, face to face with him he stood, By the great sea, on that wild steep; Around, the voiceless Solitude, Below, the funeral Deep!

XII.

They gazed--the Injurer's face grew pale-- Pale writhe the lips, the murmurs fail, And thrice he strives to speak--in vain! The sun looks blood-red on the main, The boat glides, waning less and less-- No Law lives in the wilderness, Except Revenge--man's first and last! Those wrongs--that wretch--could they forgive? All that could sweeten life was past; Yet, oh, how sweet to live!

XIII.

He gazed before, he glanced behind; There, o'er the steep rock seems to wind The devious, scarce-seen path, a snake In slime and sloth might, labouring, make. With a wild cry he springs;--he crawls; Crag upon crag he clears;--and falls Breathless and mute; and o'er him stands, Pale as himself, the chasing foe-- Mercy! what mean those clasped hands, Those lips that tremble so?

XIV.

"Thou hast cursed my life, my wealth despoil'd; My hearth "is cold, my name is soil'd; The wreck of what was Man, I stand 'Mid the lone sea and desert land! Well, I forgive thee all; but be A human voice and face to me! O stay--O stay--and let me yet One thing, that speaks man's language, know!-- The waste hath taught me to forget That earth once held a foe!"

XV.

O Heaven! methinks, from thy soft skies, Look'd tearful down the angel-eyes; Back to those walls to mark them go, Hand clasp'd in hand--the Foe and Foe! And when the sun sunk slowly there, Low knelt the prayerless man in prayer. He knelt, no more the lonely one; Within, secure, a comrade sleeps; That sun shall not go down upon A desert in the deeps.

XVI.

He knelt--the man who half till then Forgot his God in loathing men,-- He knelt, and pray'd that God to spare The Foe to grow the Brother there; And, reconciled by Love to Heaven, Forgiving--was he not forgiven? "Yes, man for man thou didst create; Man's wrongs, man's blessings can atone! To learn how Love can spring from Hate-- Go, Hate,--and live alone."

THE LAY OF THE MINSTREL'S HEART.

It was the time when Spring on Earth Gives Eden to the young; On Provence shone the Vesper star; Beneath fair Marguerite's lattice-bar The Minstrel, Aymer, sung--

"The year may take a second birth, But May is swift of wing; The Heart whose sunshine lives in thee One May from year to year shall see; Thy love, eternal spring!"

The Ladye blush'd, the Ladye sighed, All Heaven was in that Hour! The Heart he pledged was leal and brave-- And what the pledge the Ladye gave?-- Her hand let fall a flower!

And when shall Aymer claim his Bride? It is the hour to part! He goes to guard the Saviour's grave;-- Her pledge, a flower, the Maiden gave, And _his_--the Minstrel's heart!

Behold, a Cross, a Grave, a Foe! _What else--Man's Holy Land?_ High deeds, that level Rank to Fame, Have bought young Aymer's right to claim The high-born Maiden's hand.

High deeds should ask no meed below-- Their meed is in the sky. The poison-dart, in Victory's hour, Has pierced the Heart where lies the flower, And hers its latest sigh!

It is the time when Spring on Earth Gives Eden to the young, And harp and hymn proclaim the Bride, Who smiles, Count Raimond, by thy side,-- The Maid whom Aymer sung!

And, darkly through the wassail mirth, A pale procession see!-- Turn, Marguerite, from the bridegroom turn-- Thine Aymer's heart--the funeral urn-- _His_ pledge, comes back to thee!

Lo, on the Urn how wither'd lies Thy gift--the scentless flower! Amid those garlands, fresh and fair, That prank the hall and glad the air, What does that wither'd flower?

One tear bedew'd the Ladye's eyes, No tears beseem the day. The dead can ne'er to life return "A marble tomb shall grace the Urn," She said, and turn'd away.

The marble rose the Urn above, The World went on the same; The Ladye smiled. Count Raimond's bride, And flowers, like hers, that bloom'd and died, Each May returning came.

The faded flower, the dream of love, The poison and the dart, The tearful trust, the smiling wrong, The tomb,--behold, O Child of Song, The History of thy Heart!

Narrative Lyrics.

OR,

THE PARCAE;

IN SIX LEAVES FROM THE SIBYL'S BOOK.

The Parcae.--Leaf the First.

NAPOLEON AT ISOLA BELLA.

In the Isola Bella, upon the Lago Maggiore, where the richest vegetation of the tropics grows in the vicinity of the Alps, there is a lofty laurel-tree (the bay), tall as the tallest oak, on which, a few days before the battle of Marengo, Napoleon carved the word "BATTAGLIA." The bark has fallen away from the inscription, most of the letters are gone, and the few left are nearly effaced.

I.

O fairy island of a fairy sea, Wherein Calypso might have spell'd the Greek, Or Flora piled her fragrant treasury, Cull'd from each shore her Zephyr's wings could seek.-- From rocks, where aloes blow.

Tier upon tier, Hesperian fruits arise; The hanging bowers of this soft Babylon; An India mellows in the Lombard skies, And changelings, stolen from the Lybian sun, Smile to yon Alps of snow.

II.

Amid this gentlest dream-land of the wave, Arrested, stood the wondrous Corsican; As if one glimpse the better angel gave Of the bright garden-life vouschafed to man Ere blood defiled the world.

He stood--that grand Sesostris of the North-- While paused the car to which were harness'd kings; And in the airs, that lovingly sigh'd forth The balms of Araby, his eagle-wings Their sullen thunder furl'd.

III.

And o'er the marble hush of those large brows, Dread with the awe of the Olympian nod, A giant laurel spread its breathless boughs, The prophet-tree of the dark Pythian god, Shadowing the doom of thrones!

What, in such hour of rest and scene of joy, Stirs in the cells of that unfathom'd brain? Comes back one memory of the musing boy, Lone gazing o'er the yet unmeasured main, Whose waifs are human bones?

IV.

To those deep eyes doth one soft dream return? Soft with the bloom of youth's unrifled spring, When Hope first fills from founts divine the urn, And rapt Ambition, on the angel's wing, Floats first through golden air?

Or doth that smile recall the midnight street, When thine own star the solemn ray denied, And to a stage-mime,[A] for obscure retreat From hungry Want, the destined Caesar sigh'd?-- Still Fate, as then, asks prayer.

V.

Under that prophet tree, thou standest now; Inscribe thy wish upon the mystic rind; Hath the warm human heart no tender vow Link'd with sweet household names?--no hope enshrined Where thoughts are priests of Peace.

Or, if dire Hannibal thy model be, Dread lest, like him, thou bear the thunder _home_! Perchance ev'n now a Scipio dawns for thee, Thou doomest Carthage while thou smitest Rome-- Write, write "Let carnage cease!"

VI.

Whispers from heaven have strife itself inform'd;-- "Peace" was our dauntless Falkland's latest sigh, Navarre's frank Henry fed the forts he storm'd. Wild Xerxes wept the Hosts he doom'd to die! Ev'n War pays dues to Love!

Note how harmoniously the art of Man Blends with the Beautiful of Nature! see How the true Laurel of the Delian Shelters the Grace!--Apollo's peaceful tree Blunts ev'n the bolt of Jove.

VII.

Write on the sacred bark such votive prayer, As the mild Power may grant in coming years, Some word to make thy memory gentle there;-- More than renown, kind thought for men endears A Hero to Mankind.

Slow moved the mighty hand--a tremour shook The leaves, and hoarse winds groan'd along the wood; The Pythian tree the damning sentence took, And to the sun the battle-word of blood Glared from the gashing rind.

VIII.

So thou hast writ the word, and sign'd thy doom: Farewell, and pass upon thy gory way, The direful skein the pausing Fates resume! Let not the Elysian grove thy steps delay From thy Promethean goal.

The fatal tree the abhorrent word retain'd, Till the last Battle on its bloody strand Flung what were nobler had no life remain'd,-- The crownless front and the disarmed hand And the' foil'd Titan Soul;

IX.

Now, year by year, the warrior's iron mark Crumbles away from the majestic tree, The indignant life-sap ebbing from the bark Where the grim death-word to Humanity Profaned the Lord of Day.

High o'er the pomp of blooms, as greenly still, Aspires that tree--the Archetype of Fame, The stem rejects all chronicle of ill; The bark shrinks back--the _tree_ survives the same-- The _record_ rots away.

BAVENO, Oct. 8, 1845.

The Parcae.----Leaf the Second.

MAZARIN.

FAREWELL TO THE BEAUTIFUL, WITHOUT.

"I was walking, some days after, in the new apartments of his palace. I recognized the approach of the cardinal (Mazaria) by the sound of his slippered feet, which he dragged one after the other, as a man enfeebled by a mortal malady. I concealed myself behind the tapestry, and I heard him say, 'Il faut quitter tout cela!' ('I must leave all that!') He stopped at every step, for he was very feeble, and casting his eyes on each object that attracted him, he sighed forth, as from the bottom of his heart, 'II faut quitter tout cela! What pains have I taken to acquire these things! Can I abandon them without regret? I shall never see them more where I am about to go!'" &c.--MEMOIRES INEDITS DE LOUIS HENRI, COMTE DE BRIENNE, _Barriere's Edition_, vol. ii. p. 115.

Serene the Marble Images Gleam'd down, in lengthen'd rows; Their life, like the Uranides, A glory and repose.

Glow'd forth the costly canvas spoil From many a gorgeous frame; One race will starve the living toil, The next will gild the name.

That stately silence silvering through, The steadfast tapers shone Upon the Painter's pomp of hue, The Sculptor's solemn stone.

Saved from the deluge-storm of Time, Within that ark, survey Whate'er of elder Art sublime Survives a world's decay!

There creeps a foot, there sighs a breath, Along the quiet floor; An old man leaves his bed of death To count his treasures o'er.

Behold the dying mortal glide Amidst the eternal Art; It were a sight to stir with pride Some pining Painter's heart!

It were a sight that might beguile Sad Genius from the Hour, To see the life of Genius smile Upon the death of Power.

The ghost-like master of that hall Is king-like in the land; And France's proudest heads could fall Beneath that spectre hand.

Veil'd in the Roman purple, preys The canker-worm within; And more than Bourbon's sceptre sways The crook of Mazarin.

Italian, yet more dear to thee Than sceptre, or than crook, The Art in which thine Italy Still charm'd thy glazing look!

So feebly, and with wistful eyes, He crawls along the floor; A dying man, who, ere he dies, Would count his treasures o'er.

And, from the landscape's soft repose, Smiled thy calm soul, Lorraine; And, from the deeps of Raphael, rose Celestial Love again.

In pomp, which his own pomp recalls, The haggard owner sees Thy cloth of gold and banquet halls, Thou stately Veronese!

While, cold as if they scorn'd to hail Creations not their own, The Gods of Greece stand marble-pale Around the Thunderer's throne.

There, Hebe brims the urn of gold; There, Hermes treads the skies; There, ever in the Serpent's fold, Laocoon deathless dies.

There, startled from her mountain rest, Young Dian turns to draw The arrowy death that waits the breast Her slumber fail'd to awe.

There, earth subdued by dauntless deeds, And life's large labours done, Stands, sad as Worth with mortal meeds, Alcmena's mournful son.[B]

They gaze upon the fading form With mute immortal eyes;-- Here, clay that waits the hungry worm; There, children of the skies.

Then slowly as he totter'd by, The old Man, unresign'd, Sigh'd forth: "Alas! and must I die, And leave such life behind?

"The Beautiful, from which I part, Alone defies decay!" Still, while he sigh'd, the eternal Art Smiled down upon the clay.

And as he waved the feeble hand, And crawl'd unto the porch, He saw the Silent Genius stand With the extinguish'd torch!

The world without, for ever yours, Ye stern remorseless Three; What, from that changeful world, secures Calm Immortality?

Nay, soon or late decays, alas! Or canvass, stone, or scroll; From all material forms must pass To forms afresh, the soul.

'Tis but in that _which doth create_, Duration can be sought; A worm can waste the canvass;--Fate Ne'er swept from Time, a Thought.

Lives Phidias in his works alone?-- His Jove returns to air: But wake one godlike shape from stone, And Phidian thought is there!

Blot out the Iliad from the earth, Still Homer's thought would fire Each deed that boasts sublimer worth, And each diviner lyre.

Like light, connecting star to star, Doth Thought transmitted run;-- Rays that to earth the nearest are, Have longest left the sun.

The Parcae.--Leaf the Third.

ANDRE CHENIER.

FAREWELL TO THE BEAUTIFUL, WITHIN.

"Andre Chenier, the original of whatever is truest to nature and genuine passion, in the modern poetry of France, died by the guillotine, July 27, 1794. In ascending the scaffold, he cried, 'To die so young!' 'And there was something here!' he added, striking his forehead, not in the fear of death, but the despair of genius!"--See THIERS, vol. iv. p. 83.

Within the prison's dreary girth, The dismal night, before That morn on which the dungeon Earth Shall wall the soul no more,

There stood serenest images Where doomed Genius lay, The ever young Uranides Around the Child of Clay.

On blacken'd walls and rugged floors Shone cheerful, thro' the night, The stars--like beacons from the shores Of the still Infinite.

From Ida to the Poet's cell The Pain-beguilers stole; Apollo tuned his silver shell And Hebe brimm'd the bowl.

To grace those walls he needed nought That tint or stone bestows; Creation kindled from his thought: He call'd--and gods arose.

The visions Poets only know Upon the captive smiled, As bright within those walls of woe As on the sunlit child;

He saw the nameless, glorious things Which youthful dreamers see, When Fancy first with murmurous wings O'ershadows bards to be;

Those forms to life spiritual given By high creative hymn; From music born--as from their heaven Are born the Seraphim.[C]

Forgetful of the coming day, Upon the dungeon floor He sate to count, poor child of clay, The wealth of genius o'er;

To count the gems, as yet unwrought, But found beneath the soil; The bright discoveries claim'd by thought, As future crowns for toil.

He sees The Work his breath should warm To life, from out the air: The Shape of Love his soul should form, Then leave its birthright there!

He sees the new Immortal rise From her melodious sea; The last descendant of the skies For man to bend the knee--

He sees himself within your shrine O hero gods of Fame! And hears the praise that makes divine The human holy name.

True to the hearts of men shall chime The song their lips repeat; When heroes chant the strain, sublime; When lovers breathe it, sweet.

Lo, from the brief delusion given, He starts, as through the bars Gleams wan the dawn that scares from Heaven And Thought alike--its stars.

Hark to the busy tramp below! The jar of iron doors! The gaoler's heavy footfall slow Along the funeral floors!

The murmur of the crowd that round The human shambles throng; That muffled sullen thunder-sound-- The Death-cart grates along!

"Alas, so soon!--and must I die," He groan'd forth unresign'd; "Flit like a cloud athwart the sky, And leave no wrack behind!

"And yet my Genius speaks to me; The Pythian fires my brain; And tells me what my life should be; A Prophet--and in vain!

"O realm more wide, from clime to clime, Than ever Caesar sway'd; O conquests in that world of time My grand desire survey'd!"--

Blood-red upon his loathing eyes Now glares the gaoler's torch: "Come forth, the day is in the skies, The Death-cart at the porch!"

Pass on!--to thee the Parcae give The fairest lot of all;-- In golden poet-dreams to live, And ere they fade--to fall!

The shrine that longest guards a Name Is oft an early tomb; The Poem most secure of fame Is--some wrong'd poet's doom!

The Parcae.--Leaf the Fourth.

MARY STUART AND HER MOURNER.

"Mary Stuart perished at the age of forty-four years and two months. Her remains were taken from her weeping servants, and a green cloth, torn in haste from an old billiard table, was flung over her once beautiful form. Thus it remained unwatched and unattended, except by a poor little lap-dog, which could not be induced to quit the body of its mistress. This faithful little animal was found dead two days afterwards; and the circumstance made such an impression even on the hard-hearted minister of Elizabeth, that it was mentioned in the official despatches."

MRS. JAMIESON'S _Female Sovereigns--Mary Queen of Scots_.

The axe its bloody work had done; The corpse neglected lay; This peopled world could spare not one To watch beside the clay.

The fairest work from Nature's hand That e'er on mortals shone, A sunbeam stray'd from fairy land To fade upon a throne;--

The Venus of the Tomb[D] whose form Was destiny and death; The Siren's voice that stirr'd a storm In each melodious breath;--

Such _was_, what now by fate is hurl'd To rot, unwept, away. A star has vanish'd from the world; And none to miss the ray!

Stern Knox, that loneliness forlorn A harsher truth might teach To royal pomps, than priestly scorn To royal sins can preach!

No victims now that lip can make! That hand how powerless now! O God! and what a King--but take A bauble from the brow?

The world is full of life and love; The world methinks might spare From millions, one to watch above The dust of monarchs there.

And not one human eye!--yet lo What stirs the funeral pall? What sound--it is not human woe-- Wails moaning through the hall?

Close by the form mankind desert One thing a vigil keeps; More near and near to that still heart It wistful, wondering creeps.

It gazes on those glazed eyes, It hearkens for a breath-- It does not know that kindness dies, And love departs from death.

It fawns as fondly as before Upon that icy hand. And hears from lips, that speak no more, The voice that can command.

To that poor fool, alone on earth, No matter what had been The pomp, the fall, the guilt, the worth, The Dead was still a Queen.

With eyes that horror could not scare, It watch'd the senseless clay:-- Crouch'd on the breast of Death, and there Moan'd its fond life away.

And when the bolts discordant clash'd, And human steps drew nigh, The human pity shrunk abash'd Before that faithful eye;

It seem'd to gaze with such rebuke On those who could forsake; Then turn'd to watch once more the look, And strive the sleep to wake.

They raised the pall--they touch'd the dead, A cry, and _both_ were still'd,-- Alike the soul that Hate had sped, The life that Love had kill'd.

Semiramis of England, hail! Thy crime secures thy sway: But when thine eyes shall scan the tale Those hireling scribes convey;

When thou shalt read, with late remorse, How one poor slave was found Beside thy butcher'd rival's corse, The headless and discrown'd;

Shall not thy soul foretell thine own Unloved, expiring hour, When those who kneel around the throne Shall fly the falling tower;

When thy great heart shall silent break, When thy sad eyes shall strain Through vacant space, one thing to seek One thing that loved--in vain?

Though round thy parting pangs of pride Shall priest and noble crowd; More worth the grief, that mourn'd beside Thy victim's gory shroud!

The Parcae.--Leaf the Fifth.

THE LAST DAYS OF ELIZABETH.

"Her delight is to sit in the dark, and sometimes, with shedding tears, to bewail Essex."--_Contemporaneous Correspondence._

"She refused all consolation; few words she uttered, and they were all expressive of some hidden grief which she cared not to reveal. But sighs and groans were the chief vent which she gave to her despondency, and which, though they discovered her sorrows, were never able to ease or assuage them. Ten days and nights she lay upon the carpet leaning on cushions which her maids brought her," &c.--HUME.

I.

Rise from thy bloody grave, Thou soft Medusa of the Fated Line[F] Whose evil beauty look'd to death the brave;-- Discrowned Queen, around whose passionate shame Terror and Grief the palest flowers entwine, That ever veil'd the ruins of a Name With the sweet parasites of song divine!-- Arise, sad Ghost, arise, And if Revenge outlive the Tomb, Behold the Doomer brought to doom! Lo, where thy mighty Murderess lies, The sleepless couch--the sunless room,-- Through the darkness darkly seen Rests the shadow of a Queen; Ever on the lawns below Flit the shadows to and fro, Quick at dawn, and slow at noon, Halving midnight with the moon: In the palace, still and dun, Rests that shadow on the floor; All the changes of the sun Move that shadow nevermore.

II.

Yet oft she turns from face to face, A keen and wistful gaze, As if the memory seeks to trace The sign of some lost dwelling-place Beloved in happier days;-- Ah, what the clue supplies In the cold vigil of a hireling's eyes? Ah, sad in childless age to weep alone, Look round and find no grief reflect our own!-- O Soul, thou speedest to thy rest away, But not upon the pinions of the dove; When death draws nigh, how miserable they Who have outlived all love! As on the solemn verge of Night Lingers a weary Moon, Thou wanest last of every glorious light That bathed with splendour thy majestic noon:-- The stately stars that clustering o'er the isle Lull'd into glittering rest the subject sea;-- Gone the great Masters of Italian wile, False to the world beside, but true to thee!-- Burleigh, the subtlest builder of thy fame,-- The serpent craft of winding Walsingham;-- They who exalted yet before thee bow'd: And that more dazzling chivalry--the Band That made thy Court a Faery Land, In which thou wert enshrined to reign alone-- The Gloriana of the Diamond Throne;-- All gone,--and left thee sad amidst the cloud.

III.

To their great sires, to whom thy youth was known, Who from thy smile, as laurels from the sun Drank the immortal greenness of renown, Succeeds the cold lip-homage scantly won From the new race whose hearts already bear The Wise-man's offerings to th' unworthy Heir. Watching the glass in which the sands run low,-- Hovers keen Cecil with his falcon eyes, And musing Bacon[F] bends his marble brow.-- But deem not fondly there To weep the fate or pour th' averting prayer Attend those solemn spies! Lo, at the Regal Gate The impatient couriers wait; To speed from hour to hour the nice account That registers the grudged unpitied sighs Vexing the friendless void, before The Stuart's step shall reeling mount Tudor's steep throne, red with his Mother's gore!

IV.

O piteous mockery of all pomp thou art, Poor Child of Clay, worn out with toil and years! As, layer by layer, the granite of the heart Dissolving, melteth to the weakest tears That ever Village Maiden shed above The grave that robb'd her quiet world of love.

Ten days and nights upon that floor Those weary limbs have lain; And every hour has added more Of heaviness to pain. As gazing into dismal air She sees the headless phantom there, The victim round whose image twined The last wild love of womankind; That lightning flash'd from stormy hearts, Which now reveals the deeps of Heaven, And now remorseless, earthward darts, Rives, and expires on what its stroke hath riven!

'Twere sad to see from those stern eyes Th' unheeded anguish feebly flow; And hear the broken word that dies In moanings faint and low;-- But sadder still to mark the while, The vacant stare--the marble smile, And think, that goal of glory won. How slight a shade between The idiot moping in the sun And England's giant Queen![G]

V.

Call back the joyous Past! Lo, England white-robed for a holyday! While, choral to the clarion's kingly blast, Shout peals on shout along the Virgin's way, As through the swarming streets rolls on the long array. Mary is dead!--Look from your fire-won homes, Exulting Martyrs!--on the mount shall rest Truth's ark at last! th' avenging Lutheran comes And clasps THE BOOK ye died for to her breast![H] With her, the flower of all the Land, The high-born gallants ride, And ever nearest of the band, With watchful eye and ready hand, Young Dudley's form of pride![I] Ah, ev'n in that exulting hour, Love half allures the soul from Power,-- To that dread brow in bending down Throbs up, beneath the manlike crown, The woman's heart wild beating, While steals the whisper'd worship, paid Not to the Monarch, but the Maid, Through tromps and stormy greeting.

VI.

Call back the gorgeous Past! The lists are set, the trumpets sound, Still as the stars, when to the breeze Sway the proud crests of stately trees, Bright eyes, from tier on tier around, Look down, where on its famous ground Murmurs and moves the bristling life Of antique Chivalry! "Forward!"[J]--the signal word is given-- Like cloud on cloud by tempest driven; Steel lightens, and arm'd thunders close! How plumes descend in flakes of snows; How the ground reels, as reels a sea, Beneath the inebriate rapture-strife Of jocund Chivalry! Who is the Victor of the Day? Thou of the delicate form and golden hair And Manhood glorious in its midst of May;-- Thou who, upon thy shield of argent, bearest The bold device, "The Loftiest is the Fairest!" As bending low thy stainless crest, "The Vestal throned by the West" Accords the old Provencal crown Which blends her own with thy renown;-- Arcadian Sidney--Nursling of the Muse, Flower of divine Romance,[K] whose bloom was fed By daintiest Helicon's most silver dews, Alas! how soon thy lovely leaves were shed-- Thee lost, no more were Grace and Force united, Grace but some flaunting Buckingham unmann'd, And Force but crush'd what Freedom vainly righted-- Behind, lo Cromwell looms, and dusks the land With the swart shadow of his giant hand.

VII.

Call back the Kingly Past! Where, bright and broadening to the main, Rolls on the scornful River,-- Stout hearts beat high on Tilbury's plain,-- Our Marathon for ever! No breeze above, but on the mast The pennon shook as with the blast. Forth from the cloud the day-god strode; Flash'd back from steel, the splendour glow'd,-- Leapt the loud joy from Earth to Heaven, As through the ranks asunder riven, The Warrior-Woman rode! Hark, thrilling through the armed Line The martial accents ring, "Though mine the Woman's form--yet mine, "The Heart of England's King!"[L] Woe to the Island and the Maid! The Pope has preach'd the New Crusade,[M] His sons have caught the fiery zeal; The Monks are merry in Castile; Bold Parma on the Main; And through the deep exulting sweep The Thunder-Steeds of Spain.-- What meteor rides the sulphurous gale? The Flames have caught the giant sail! Fierce Drake is grappling prow to prow; God and St. George for Victory now! Death in the Battle and the Wind-- Carnage before and Storm behind-- Wild shrieks are heard above the hurtling roar By Orkney's rugged strands, and Erin's ruthless shore. Joy to the Island and the Maid! Pope Sextus wept the Last Crusade! His sons consumed before his zeal,-- The Monks are woeful in Castile; Your Monument the Main, The glaive and gale record your tale, Ye Thunder-Steeds of Spain!

VIII.

Turn from the idle Past; Its lonely ghost thou art! Yea, like a ghost, whom charms to earth detain (When, with the dawn, its kindred phantom train Glide into peaceful graves)--to dust depart Thy shadowy pageants; and the day unblest, Seems some dire curse that keeps thee from thy rest. Yet comfort, comfort to thy longing woe, Thou wistful watcher by the dreary portal; Now when most human, since most feeble, know, That in the Human struggles the Immortal.

Flash'd from the steel of the descending shears, Oft sacred light illumes the parting soul; And our last glimpse along the woof of years, First reads the scheme that disinvolves the whole. Yet, then, recall the Past! Is reverence not the child of sympathy? To feel for Greatness we must hear it sigh: On mortal brows those halos longest last Which blend for one the rays that verge from all. Few reign, few triumph; millions love and grieve: Of grief and love let some high memory leave One mute appeal to life, upon the stone-- That tomb from Time shall votive rites receive When History doubts what ghost once fill'd a throne. So,--indistinct while back'd by sunlit skies-- But large and clear against the midnight pall, Thy human outline awes our human eyes. Place, place, ye meaner royalties below, For Nature's holiest--Womanhood and Woe!

Let not vain youth deride the age that still Loves as the young,--loves on unto the last; Grandest the heart when grander than the will-- Bow we before the soul, which through the Past, Turns no vain glance towards fading heights of Pride, But strains its humbled tearful gaze to see, Love and Remorse--near Immortality, And by the yawning Grave, stand side by side.

The Parcae.--Leaf the Sixth.

CROMWELL'S DREAM.

The conception of this Ode originated in a popular tradition of Cromwell's earlier days. It is thus strikingly related by Mr. Forster, in his very valuable Life of Cromwell:--"He laid himself down, too fatigued in hope for sleep, when suddenly the curtains of his bed were slowly withdrawn by a gigantic figure, which bore the aspect of a woman, and which, gazing at him silently for a while, told him that he should, before his death, be the greatest man in England. He remembered when he told the story, and the recollection marked the current of his thoughts, _that the figure had not made mention of the word King_." Alteration has been made in the scene of the vision, and the age of Cromwell.

I.

The Moor spread wild and far, In the sharp whiteness of a wintry shroud; Midnight yet moonless; and the winds ice-bound: And a grey dusk--not darkness--reign'd around, Save where the phantom of a sudden star Peer'd o'er some haggard precipice of cloud:-- Where on the wold, the triple pathway cross'd, A sturdy wanderer wearied, lone, and lost, Paused and gazed round; a dwarf'd but aged yew O'er the wan rime its gnome-like shadow threw; The spot invited, and by sleep oppress'd, Beneath the boughs he laid him down to rest. A man of stalwart limbs and hardy frame, Meet for the ruder time when force was fame, Youthful in years--the features yet betray Thoughts rarely mellow'd till the locks are grey: Round the firm lips the lines of solemn wile Might warn the wise of danger in the smile; But the blunt aspect spoke more sternly still That craft of craft--THE STUBBORN WILL: That which,--let what may betide-- Never halts nor swerves aside; From afar its victim viewing, Slow of speed, but sure-pursuing; Through maze, up mount, still hounding on its way, Till grimly couch'd beside the conquer'd prey!

II.

The loftiest fate will longest lie In unrevealing sleep; And yet unknown the destined race, Nor yet his Soul had walk'd with Grace; Still, on the seas of Time Drifted the ever-careless prime,-- But many a blast that o'er the sky All idly seems to sweep,-- Still while it speeds, may spread the seeds The toils of autumn reap:-- And we must blame the soil, and not the wind, If hurrying passion leave no golden grain behind.

III.

Seize--seize--seize![N] Bind him strong in the chain, On his heart, on his brain, Clasp the links of the evil Sleep! Seize--seize--seize-- Ye fiends that dimly sweep Up from the Stygian deep, Where Death sits watchful by his brother's side! Ye pale Impalpables, that are Shadows of Truths afar, Appearing oft to warn, but ne'er to guide,-- Hover around the calm, disdainful Fates, Reveal the woof through which the spindle gleams:-- Open, ye Ebon gates! Darken the moon--O Dreams!

Seize--seize--seize-- Bind him strong in the chain, On his heart, on his brain, Clasp the links of the evil Sleep!

Awakes or dreams he still? His eyes are open with a glassy stare, On the fix'd brow the large drops gather chill, And horror, like a wind, stirs through the lifted hair. Before him stands the Thing of Dread-- A giant shadow motionless and pale! As those dim Lemur-Vapours that exhale From the rank grasses rotting o'er the Dead, And startle midnight with the mocking show Of the still, shrouded bones that sleep below-- So the wan image which the Vision bore Was outlined from the air, no more Than served to make the loathing sense a bond Between the world of life, and grislier worlds beyond.

IV.

"Behold!" the Shadow said, and lo, Where the blank heath had spread, a smiling scene; Soft woodlands sloping from a village green,[O] And, waving to blue Heaven, the happy cornfields glow: A modest roof, with ivy cluster'd o'er, And Childhood's busy mirth beside the door. But, yonder, sunset sleeping on the sod, Bow Labour's rustic sons in solemn prayer; And, self-made teacher of the truths of God, The Dreamer sees the Phantom-Cromwell there! "Art thou content, of these the greatest _Thou_," Murmur'd the Fiend, "the Master and the Priest?" A sullen anger knit the Dreamer's brow, And from his scornful lips the words came slow, "The greatest of the hamlet, Demon, No!" Loud laugh'd the Fiend--then trembled through the sky, Where haply angels watch'd, a warning sigh;-- And darkness swept the scene, and golden Quiet ceased.

V.

"Behold!" the Shadow said--a hell-born ray Shoots through the Night, up-leaps the unholy Day, Spring from the earth the Dragon's armed seed, The ghastly squadron wheels, and neighs the spectre-steed. Unnatural sounded the sweet Mother-tongue, As loud from host to host the English war-cry rung; Kindred with kindred blent in slaughter show The dark phantasma of the Prophet-Woe! A gay and glittering band! Apollo's lovelocks in the crest of Mars-- Light-hearted Valour, laughing scorn to scars-- A gay and glittering band, Unwitting of the scythe--the lilies of the land! Pale in the midst, that stately squadron boasts A princely form, a mournful brow; And still, where plumes are proudest, seen, With sparkling eye and dauntless mien, The young Achilles[P] of the hosts. On rolls the surging war--and now Along the closing columns ring-- "Rupert" and "Charles"--"The Lady of the Crown,"[Q] "Down with the Roundhead Rebels, down!" "St. George and England's king."

A stalwart and a sturdy band,-- Whose souls of sullen zeal Are made, by the Immortal Hand Invulnerable steel! A kneeling host,--a pause of prayer, A single voice thrills through the air "They come. Up, Ironsides! For TRUTH and PEACE unsparing smite! Behold the accursed Amalekite!" The Dreamer's heart beat high and loud, For, calmly through the carnage-cloud, The scourge and servant of the Lord, This hand the Bible--that the sword-- The Phantom-Cromwell rides!

A lurid darkness swallows the array, One moment lost--the darkness rolls away, And, o'er the slaughter done, Smiles, with his eyes of love, the setting Sun; Death makes our foe our brother; And, meekly, side by side, Sleep scowling Hate and sternly smiling Pride, On the kind breast of Earth, the quiet Mother! Lo, where the victor sweeps along, The Gideon of the gory throng, Beneath his hoofs the harmless dead-- The aureole on his helmed head-- Before him steel-clad Victory bending, Around, from earth to heaven ascending The fiery incense of triumphant song. So, as some orb, above a mighty stream Sway'd by its law, and sparkling in its beam,-- A power apart from that tempestuous tide, Calm and aloft, behold the Phantom-Conqueror ride!

"Art thou content--of these the greatest Thou, Hero and Patriot?" murmur'd then the Fiend. The unsleeping Dreamer answer'd, "Tempter, nay, My soul stands breathless on the mountain's brow And looks _beyond_!" Again swift darkness screen'd The solemn Chieftain and the fierce array, And armed Glory pass'd, like happier Peace, away.

VI.

He look'd again, and saw A chamber with funereal sables hung, Wherein there lay a ghastly, headless thing That once had been a king-- And by the corpse a living man, whose doom, Had both been left to Nature's gradual law, Were riper for the garner-house of gloom.[R] Rudely beside the gory clay were flung The Norman sceptre and the Saxon crown;[S] So, after some imperial Tragedy August alike with sorrow and renown, We smile to see the gauds that moved our awe, Purple and orb, in dusty lumber lie,-- Alas, what thousands, on the stage of Time, Envied the baubles, and revered the Mine!

Placed by the trunk--with long and whitening hair By dark-red gouts besprent, the sever'd head Up to the Gazer's musing eyes, the while, Look'd with its livid brow and stony smile. On that sad scene, his gaze the Dreamer fed, Familiar both the Living and the Dead; Terror, and hate, and strife concluded there, Calm in his six-feet realm the monarch lay; And by the warning victim's mangled clay The Phantom-Cromwell smiled,--and bending down With shadowy fingers toy'd about the shadowy crown. "Art thou content at last?--a Greater thou Than one to whom the loftiest bent the knee. First in thy fierce Republic of the Free, Avenger and Deliverer?"

"Fiend," replied The Dreamer, "who shall palter with the tide?-- _Deliverer!_ Pilots who the vessel save Leave not the helm while winds are on the wave. THE FUTURE is the Haven of THE NOW!" "True," quoth the Fiend--Again the darkness spread, And night gave back to air the Doomsman and the Dead!

VII.

"See," cried the Fiend;--he views A lofty Senate stern with many a form Not unfamiliar to the earlier strife; Knit were the brows--and passion flush'd the hues, And all were hush'd!--that, hush which is in life As in the air, prophetic of a storm.

Uprose a shape[T] with dark bright eye; It spoke--and at the word The Dreamer breathed an angry sigh; And starting--clutch'd his sword; An instinct bade him hate and fear That unknown shape--as if a foe were near-- For, mighty in that mien of thoughtful youth, Spoke Fraud's most deadly foe--a soul on fire with Truth; A soul without one stain Save England's hallowing tears;--the sad and starry Vane. There enter'd on that conclave high A solitary Man! And rustling through the conclave high A troubled murmur ran; A moment more--loud riot all-- With pike and morion gleam'd the startled hall: And there, where, since the primal date Of Freedom's glorious morn, The eternal People solemn sate, The People's Champion spat his ribald scorn! Dark moral to all ages!--Blent in one The broken fasces and the shatter'd throne; The deed that damns immortally is done; And FORCE, the Cain of Nations-reigns alone! The veil is rent--the crafty soul lies bare! "Behold," the Demon cried, "the _Future_ Cromwell, there! Art thou content, on earth the Greatest thou, APOSTATE AND USURPER?"--From his rest The Dreamer started with a heaving breast, The better angels of the human heart Not dumb to his,--The Hell-Born laugh'd aloud, And o'er the Evil Vision rush'd the cloud!

[A] Talma.

[B] Certainly the sculptor of the Farnese Hercules well conceived that ideal character of the demi-god, which makes Aristotle (Prob. 30) class the grand Personification of Labour amongst the Melancholy. It is the union of mournful repose with colossal power, which gives so profound a moral sentiment to that masterpiece of art.

[C] "Aus den Saiten, wie aus ihren Himmeln, Neugebor'ne Seraphim."--_Schiller._

[D] Libitina, the Venus who presided over funerals.

[E] Mary Stuart--"the soft Medusa" is an expression strikingly applied to her in her own day.

[F] See the correspondence maintained by Francis Bacon and Robert Cecil (the sons of Elizabeth's most faithful friends) with the Scottish court, during the Queen's last illness.

[G] "It was after labouring for nearly three weeks under a morbid melancholy, which brought on a stupor not unmixed with some indications of a disordered fancy, that the Queen expired."--_Aikin's translation of a Latin letter (author unknown) to Edmund Lambert._

Robert Carey, who was admitted to an interview with Elizabeth in her last illness, after describing the passionate anguish of her sighs, observes, "that in all his lifetime before, he never knew her fetch a sigh but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded." Yet this Robert Carey, the well-born mendicant of her bounty, was the first whose eager haste and joyous countenance told James that the throne of the Tudors was at last vacant.

[H] "When she (Elizabeth) was conducted through London amidst the joyful acclamations of her subjects, a boy, who personated Truth, was let down from one of the triumphal arches, and presented to her a copy of the Bible. She received the book with the most gracious deportment, placed it next her bosom," &c.--HUME.

[I] Robert Dudley, afterwards the Leicester of doubtful fame, attended Elizabeth in her passage to the Tower. The streets, as she passed along, were spread with the finest gravel; banners and pennons, hangings of silk, of velvet, of cloth of gold, were suspended from the balconies; musicians and singers were stationed amidst the populace, as she rode along in her purple robes, preceded by her heralds, &c.

[J] The customary phrase was "_Laissez aller_."

[K] "The Life of Sir Philip Sidney," as Campbell finely expresses it, "was Poetry put in action." With him died the Provencal and the Norman--the Ideal of the Middle Ages.

[L] "I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too."

She rode bareheaded through the ranks, a page bearing her helmet, mounted on a war-horse, clad in steel, and wielding a general's truncheon in her hand.

[M] "Sextus Quintus, the present Pope, famous for his capacity and his tyranny, had published a crusade against England, and had granted plenary indulgences to every one engaged in the present invasion."--HUME. This Pope was, nevertheless, Elizabeth's admirer as well as foe, and said, "If a son could be born from us two, he would be master of the world."

[N] [Greek: Laze, laze, laze, laze] (seize, seize, seize).--_AEschyl. Eumen._, 125.

[O] The farm of St. Ives, where Cromwell spent three years, which he afterwards recalled with regret--though not unafflicted with dark hypochondria and sullen discontent. Here, as Mr. Forster impressively observes, "in the tenants that rented from him, in the labourers that served under him, he sought to sow the seeds of his after troop of Ironsides.... _All the famous doctrines of his later and more celebrated years were tried and tested in the little farm of St. Ives...._ Before going to their field-work in the morning, they (his servants) knelt down with their master in the touching equality of prayer; in the evening they shared with him again the comfort and exaltation of divine precepts."--FORSTER'S _Cromwell_.

[P] Prince Rupert.

[Q] Henrietta Maria was the popular battle-cry of the Cavaliers.

[R] The reader will recall the well-known story of Cromwell opening the coffin of Charles with the hilt of a private soldier's sword, and, after gazing on the body for some time, observing calmly, that it seemed made for long life,--

"Had Nature been his executioner, He would have outlived me!"--_Cromwell_, a MS. tragedy.

[S] King Alfred's crown was actually sold after the execution of Charles the First.

[T] When Cromwell came down (leaving his musketeers without the door) to dissolve the Long Parliament, Vane was in the act of urging, through the last stage, the Bill that would have saved the republic--See Forster's spirited account of this scene, _Life of Vane_, p. 152.

* * * * *

KING ARTHUR.

PREFACE.

In prefixing to this poem a brief explanation of its design, I feel myself involuntarily compelled to refer to the more popular distinctions of Epic Fable, though I do not thereby presume to arrogate to my work that title of Epic which Time alone has the prerogative to confer.

Pope has, accurately and succinctly, defined the three cardinal divisions of Epic Fable to consist in the Probable, the Allegorical, and the Marvellous. For the Probable is indispensable to the vital interest of the action, the Marvellous is the obvious domain of creative invention, and the Allegorical is the most pleasing mode of insinuating some subtler truth, or clothing some profounder moral.

I accept these divisions, because they conform to the simplest principles of rational criticism; and though their combination does not form an Epic, it serves at least to amplify the region and elevate the objects of Romance.

It has been my aim so to blend these divisions, that each may harmonize with the other, and all conduce to the end proposed from the commencement. I have admitted but little episodical incident, and none that does not grow out of what Pope terms "the platform of the story." For the marvellous agencies I have not presumed to make direct use of that Divine Machinery which the war of the Christian Principle with the form of Heathenism might have suggested to the sublime daring of Milton, had he prosecuted his original idea of founding an heroic poem upon the legendary existence of Arthur;--and, on the other hand, the Teuton Mythology, however imaginative and profound, is too unfamiliar and obscure, to permit its employment as an open and visible agency;--such reference to it as occurs, is therefore rather admitted as an appropriate colouring to the composition, than made an integral part of the materials of the canvas: and, not to ask from the ordinary reader an erudition I should have no right to expect, the reference so made is in the simplest form, and disentangled from the necessity of other information than a few brief notes will suffice to afford.

In taking my subject from chivalrous romance, I take, then, those agencies from the Marvellous which chivalrous romance naturally and familiarly affords--the Fairy, the Genius, the Enchanter: not wholly, indeed, in the precise and literal spirit with which our nursery tales receive those creations of Fancy through the medium of French Fabliaux, but in the larger significations by which, in their conceptions of the Supernatural, our fathers often implied the secrets of Nature. For the Romance from which I borrow is the Romance of the North--a Romance, like the Northern mythology, full of typical meaning and latent import. The gigantic remains of symbol-worship are visible amidst the rude fables of the Scandinavians, and what little is left to us of the earlier and more indigenous literature of the Cymrians, is characterized by a mysticism profound with parable. This fondness for an interior or double meaning is the most prominent attribute in that Romance popularly called The Gothic, the feature most in common with all creations that bear the stamp of the Northern fancy: we trace it in the poems of the Anglo-Saxons; it returns to us, in our earliest poems after the Conquest; it does not _originate_ in the Oriental genius (immemorially addicted to Allegory), but it instinctively _appropriates_ all that Saraconic invention can suggest to the more sombre imagination of the North--it unites to the Serpent of the Edda the flying Griffin of Arabia, the Persian Genius to the Scandinavian Trold,--and wherever it accepts a marvel, it seeks to insinuate a type. This peculiarity, which distinguishes the spiritual essence of the modern from the sensual character of ancient poetry, especially the Roman, is visible wherever a tribe allied to the Goth, the Frank, or the Teuton, carries with it the deep mysteries of the Christian faith. Even in sunny Provence it transfuses a subtler and graver moral into the lays of the joyous troubadour,[A]--and weaves "The Dance of Death" by the joyous streams, and through the glowing orange-groves, of Spain. Onwards, this under-current of meaning flowed, through the various phases of civilization:--it pervaded alike the popular Satire and the dramatic Mystery;--and, preserving its thoughtful calm amidst all the stirring passions that agitated mankind in the age subsequent to the Reformation, not only suffused the luxuriant fancy of the dreamy Spenser, but communicated to the practical intellect of Shakspere that subtle and recondite wisdom which seems the more inexhaustible the more it is examined, and suggests to every new inquirer some new problem in the philosophy of Human Life. Thus, in taking from Northern Romance the Marvellous, we are most faithful to the genuine character of that Romance, when we take with the Marvellous its old companion, the Typical or Allegorical. But these form only two divisions of the three which I have assumed as the components of the unity I seek to accomplish; there remains the Probable, which contains the Actual. To subject the whole poem to allegorical constructions would be erroneous, and opposed to the vital principle of a work of this kind, which needs the support of direct and human interest. The inner and the outer meaning of Fable should flow together, each acting on the other, as the thought and the action in the life of a man. It is true that in order clearly to interpret the action, we should penetrate to the thought. But if we fail of that perception, the action, though less comprehended, still impresses its reality on our senses, and make its appeal to our interest.

[A] Rien n'est plus commun dans la poesie provencale que l'allegorie; seulement elle est un jeu-d'esprit an lieu d'etre une action.... Une autre analogie me parait plus spoutanee qu'imitee--la poesie des troubadours qu'on suppose frivole, a souvent retracee des sentiments graves et touchants," &c.--VILLEMAIN, _Tableau du Moyen Age_.

I have thus sought to maintain the Probable through that chain of incident in which human agencies are employed, and through those agencies the direct action of the Poem is accomplished; while the Allegorical admits into the Marvellous the introduction of that subtler form of Truth, which if less positive than the Actual, is wider in its application, and ought to be more profound in its significance.

For the rest, it may perhaps be conceded that this poem is not without originality in the conception of its plot and the general treatment of its details. I am not aware of any previous romantic poem which it resembles in its main design, or in the character of its principal incidents;--and, though I may have incurred certain mannerisms of my own day, I yet venture to trust that, in the pervading form or style, the mind employed has been sufficiently in earnest to leave its own peculiar effigy and stamp upon the work. For the incidents narrated, I may, indeed, thank the nature of my subject, if many of them could scarcely fail to be new. The celebrated poets of chivalrous fable--Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser, have given to their scenery the colourings of the West. The Great North from which Chivalry sprung--its polar seas, its natural wonders, its wild legends, its antediluvian remains--(wide fields for poetic description and heroic narrative)--have been, indeed, not wholly unexplored by poetry, but so little appropriated, that even after Tegner and Oehlenschlaeger, I dare to hope that I have found tracks in which no poet has preceded me, and over which yet breathes the native air of our National Romance.

For the Manners preserved through this poem, I naturally reject those which the rigid Antiquary would appropriate to the date of that Historical Arthur, of whom we know so little, and take those of the age in which the Arthur of Romance, whom we know so well, revived into fairer life at the breath of Minstrel and Fabliast. The anachronism of chivalrous manners and costume for the British chief and his Knighthood, is absolutely required by all our familiar associations. On the other hand, without affecting any precise accuracy in details, I have kept the country of the brave Prince of the Silures (or South Wales) somewhat more definitely in view, than has been done by the French Romance writers; while in portraying his Saxon foes, I have endeavoured to distinguish their separate nationality, without enforcing too violent a contrast between the rudeness of the heathen Teutons and the _polished Christianity of the Cymrian Knighthood_.[B]

[B] In the more historical view of the position of Arthur, I have, however, represented it such as it really appears to have been,--not as the sovereign of all Britain, and the conquering invader of Europe (according to the groundless fable of Geoffrey of Monmouth), but as the patriot Prince of South Wales, resisting successfully the invasion of his own native soil, and accomplishing the object of his career in preserving entire the nationality of his Welsh countrymen. In thus contracting his sphere of action to the bounds of rational truth, his dignity, both moral and poetic, is obviously enhanced. Represented as the champion of all Britain against the Saxons, his life would have been but a notorious and signal failure; but as the preserver of the Cymrian Nationality--of that part of the British population which took refuge in Wales, he has a claim to the epic glory of success.

It is for this latter reason that I have gone somewhat out of the strict letter of history, in the poetical licence by which the Mercians are represented as Arthur's principal enemies (though, properly speaking, the Mercian kingdom was not then founded): the alliance between the Mercian and the Welsh, which concludes the Poem--is at least not contrary to the spirit of History--since in very early periods such amicable bonds between the Welsh and the Mercians were contracted, and the Welsh, on the whole, were on better terms with those formidable borderers than with the other branches of the Saxon family.

May I be permitted to say a word as to the metre I have selected?--One advantage it has,--that while thoroughly English, and not uncultivated by the best of the elder masters, it has never been applied to a poem of equal length, and has not been made too trite and familiar, by the lavish employment of recent writers.[C] Shakspere has taught us its riches in the Venus and Adonis,--Spenser in The Astrophel,--Cowley has sounded its music amidst the various intonations of his irregular lyre. But of late years, if not wholly laid aside, it has been generally neglected for the more artificial and complicated Spenserian stanza, which may seem, at the first glance, to resemble it, but which to the ear is widely different in rhythm and construction.

[C] Southey has used it in the "Lay of the Laureate" and "The Poet's Pilgrimage,"--not his best-known and most considerable poems.

The reader may perhaps remember that Dryden has spoken with emphatic praise of the "quatrain, or stanza of four in alternate rhyme." He says indeed, "that he had ever judged it more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us." That metre, in its simple integrity, is comprised in the stanza selected, ending in the vigour and terseness of the rhyming couplet, with which, for the most part, the picture should be closed or the sense clenched. And whatever the imperfection of my own treatment of this variety in poetic form, I hazard a prediction that it will be ultimately revived into more frequent use, especially in narrative, and that its peculiar melodies of rhythm and cadence, as well as the just and measured facilities it affords to expression, neither too diffuse nor too restricted, will be recognized hereafter in the hands of a more accomplished master of our language.

Here ends all that I feel called upon to say respecting a Poem which I now acknowledge as the child of my most cherished hopes, and to which I deliberately confide the task to uphold, and the chance to continue, its father's name.

To this work, conceived first in the enthusiasm of youth, I have patiently devoted the best powers of my maturer years;--if it be worthless, it is at least the worthiest contribution that my abilities enable me to offer to the literature of my country; and I am unalterably convinced, that on this foundation I rest the least perishable monument of those thoughts and those labours which have made the life of my life.

E. BULWER LYTTON.

NOTE.

Of the notes inserted in the first edition I have retained only those which appeared to me absolutely necessary in explanation of the text. Among the notes omitted, was one appended to Book I., which defended at some length, and by numerous examples, two alleged peculiarities of style or mannerism:--I content myself here with stating briefly--

1st.--That in this work (as in my later ones generally) I have adopted what appears to me to have been the practice of Gray (judging from the editions of his Poems revised by himself), in the use of the capital initial. I prefix it--

First, to every substantive that implies a personification; thus War, Fame, &c, may in one line take the small initial as mere nouns, and in another line the capital initial, to denote that they are intended as personifications. This rule is clear--all personifications may be said to represent proper names: love, with a small l, means but a passion or affection; with a large L, Love represents some mythological power that presides over the passion or affection, and is as much a proper name as Venus, Eros, Camdeo, &c.

Secondly, I prefix the capital in those rare instances in which an adjective is used as a noun; as the Unknown, the Obscure,[D] &c. The capital here but answers the use of all printed inventions, in simplifying to the reader the author's meaning. If it be printed "he passed through the obscure," the reader naturally looks for the noun that is to follow the adjective; if the capital initial be used, as "He passed through the Obscure," the eye conveys to the mind without an effort the author's intention to use the adjective as a substantive.

[D] So Pope, "Spencer himself affects the Obsolete."

Thirdly, I prefix the capital initial where it serves to give an individual application to words that might otherwise convey only a general meaning; for instance--

"Or his who loves the madding Nymphs to lead O'er the Fork'd Hill.

that is, the Forked Hill, _par emphasis_,--Parnassus.

The use of the capital in these instances seems to me warranted by common sense, and the best authorities in the minor niceties of our language.

With regard to the other point referred to in the omitted note, I would observe, that I have deliberately used the freest licence in the rapid change of tense from past to present, or _vice versa_; as a privilege essential to all ease, spirit, force, and variety, in narrative poetry; and warranted by the uniform practice of Pope, Dryden, and Milton. I subjoin a few examples:--

"So _prayed_ they, innocent, and to their thoughts Firm peace recover'd soon and wonted calm; On to their morning's rural work they _haste_, Among sweet dews and flowers, where any row Of fruit-trees over-woody reach'd too far Their pamper'd boughs, and needed hands to check Fruitless embraces; or they _led_ the vine To wed the elm."

MILTON'S _Paradise Lost_, Book v., from line 209 to 216.

Here the tense changes three times.

Again:--

"Straight _knew_ him all the bands Of angels under watch, and to his state And to his message high in honour _rise_, For on some message high they _guess'd_ him bound."

_Ibid._, Book v., from line 288 to 291.

"Thus while he spoke, the virgin from the ground _Upstarted_ fresh; already closed the wound; And unconcern'd for all she felt before, _Precipitates_ her flight along the shore: The hell-hounds as ungorged with flesh and blood _Pursue_ their prey and seek their wonted food; The fiend remounts his courser, mends his pace, And all the vision _vanish'd_ from the place."

DRYDEN'S _Theod. and Honor_.

Pope--not without reason esteemed for verbal correctness and precision--far exceeds all in his lavish use of this privilege, as one or two quotations will amply suffice to show.

"She said, and to the steeds approaching near _Drew_ from his seat the martial charioteer; The vigorous Power[E] the trembling car _ascends_, Fierce for revenge, and Diomed _attends_: The groaning axle _bent_ beneath the load," &c.

POPE'S _Iliad_, Book v.

"Pierced through the shoulder first Decopis _fell_, Next Eunomus and Thoon _sunk_ to Hell. Chersidamas, beneath the navel thrust, _Falls_ prone to earth, and _grasps_ the bloody dust; Cherops, the son of Hipposus, _was_ near; Ulysses reach'd him with the fatal spear; But to his aid his brother Socus _flies_, Socus the brave, the generous, and the wise; Near as he _drew_ the warrior thus _began_," &c.--_Ibid._

"Behind, unnumber'd multitudes _attend_ To flank the navy and the shores defend. Full on the front the pressing Trojans bear, And Hector first _came_ towering to the war. Phoebus himself the rushing battle _led_, A veil of clouds involves his radiant head-- The Greeks _expect_ the shock; the clamours rise From different parts and _mingle_ in the skies Dire _was_ the hiss of darts by heaven flung, And arrows, leaping from the bowstring, _sung_: These _drink_ the life of generous warrior slain-- Those guiltless _fall_ and _thirst_ for blood in vain."

POPE'S _Odyssey_.

In the last quotation, brief as it is, the tense changes six times.

[E] In the corrupt and thoughtless mode of printing now in vogue, Power is of course printed with a small p, and the sense of the clearest of all English poets instantly becomes obscure.

"The vigorous power the trembling car ascends."

It is not till one has read the line twice over that one perceives "the power" means "the God," which, when printed "the Power," is obvious at a glance.

I ask indulgence of the reader if I take this occasion to add a very short comment upon three objections to this poem which have been brought under my notice:--

1--that it contains too much learning; 2--that it abounds too much with classical allusions; 3--that it indulges in rare words or archaisms.

I wish I could plead guilty to the honourable charge that it contains too much learning. A distinguished critic has justly observed, that the greatest obstacle which the modern writer attempting an Epic would have to encounter, would be, in his utter impossibility to attain the requisite learning. For an Epic ought to embody the whole learning of the period in which it is composed; and in the present age that is beyond the aspiration of the most erudite scholar or the profoundest philosopher. Still, any attempt at an Heroic Poem must at least comprise all the knowledge which the nature of the subject will admit, and we cannot but observe that the greatest narrative poems are those in which the greatest amount of learning is contained. Beyond all comparison the most learned poems that exist, in reference to the age in which they are composed, are the "Iliad" and "Odyssey;" next to them, the "Paradise Lost;" next to that, the "AEneid," in which the chief charm of the six latter books is in that "exquisite erudition," which Mueller so discriminately admires in Virgil; and after these, in point of learning, come perhaps the "Divine Comedy," and the "Fairy Queen." So that I have only to regret my deficiency of learning, rather than to apologize for the excess of it.

With regard to the classical allusions which I have permitted myself, I might shelter my practice under the mantles of our great masters in heroic song--Milton and Spenser; but in fact such admixture of the Classic with the Gothic muse is so essentially the characteristic of the minstrelsy of the middle ages, that without a liberal use of the same combination, I could not have preserved the colouring proper to my subject. And, indeed, I think the advice which one of the most elegant of modern critics has given to the painter, is equally applicable to the poet:--

"Non te igitur lateant antiqua numismata, gemmae, Quodque refert specie veterum post saecula mentem; Splendidior quippe ex illis assurgit imago Magnaque se rerum facies aperit meditanti."[F]

[F] DU FRESNOY _de Arte Graphica_.

Lastly, the moderate use of archaisms has always been deemed admissible in a narrative poem of some length, and rather perhaps an ornament than a defect, where the action of the poem is laid in remote antiquity. And I may add that not only the revival of old, but the invention of new words, if sparingly resorted to, is among the least contestable of poetic licences--a licence freely recognized by Horace, elaborately maintained by Dryden, and tacitly sanctioned, age after age, by the practice of every poet by whom our language has been enriched. I have certainly not abused either of these privileges, for while I have only adopted three new words of foreign derivation, I do not think there are a dozen words in the whole poem which can be considered archaisms: and in the three or four instances in which such words are not to be found in Milton, Shakspere, or Spenser, they are taken from the Saxon element of our language, and are still popularly used in the northern parts of the island, in which that Saxon element is more tenaciously preserved.

If these matters do not seem to the reader of much importance, in reference to a poem of this design and extent, I will own to him confidentially, that I incline to his opinion. But I have met with no objections to the general composition of this work, more serious than those to which the above remarks are intended to reply. Some objections to special lines or stanzas which appeared to me prompted by a juster criticism, or which occurred to myself in reperusal, I have carefully endeavoured in this edition to remove.