Part 2

Cautiously, In his far corner, one behind the king At the dumb bursting-point of that weird hush, With nervous finger twitched his neighbor’s sleeve, And strove to whisper him with palsied tongue, And straight relaxed, and smiled; but new-convinced Towards twilight’s gracious advent, crept in awe With arm extended, to his fellow’s side; And the two thrilled alike, immovable, Each palm down-roofed above the frantic eye, Froze at their posts: which eager Theron marked, Piloting his keen sight across the main, And smote his bosom with quick-smothered groan, And, breathless, gazed and gazed. By twos and threes The apprehensive company dropped aghast Out on the reeling ragged precipice Sparkled and shelled with the oncoming tide: Till Ægeus, slow-divining dupe of hope, Awoke, and knelt him down against his throne, Faint with thanksgiving. And the moments creaked In gyral passage, like Ixion’s wheel, Spoke on accursèd spoke, portending woe. But he, athwart his lonely pinnacle Called like a ghost from walled eternity: ‘What of the sail? What cheer?’ Their lips congealed Nothing replied. The cruel hour rolled on. Intolerable arid east-blown wave Vaulting on wave thro’ all her caverns loud, Far upon Oliaros boomed the sea.

Then bearded Rhodalus, compassionate, Spied leaning o’er the crags the frenzied king, Rending his garment to the paling moon; And yet evasive of those pleading eyes, Knotting his arms against his breast, downcast, Adjured him: ‘O most reverend, O most dear! The heart of life is rotten; prayer is vain. Stay up thy soul: for lo! the sail is black.’ And all the trancèd host burst into moan.

Old Ægeus, like a dreamer, muttered ‘Aye,’ Passive; and from his brain the fever fell, And more than Zeus himself, he things unseen Saw, and to unheard choirings lent his ear. Theseus, truth-speaking, vowed the sky-sail white; The sail was black: therefore was Theseus dead In untriumphant state; his comrades, dead; Dead, the emprise of Greece; her dynasty Ungendered, dead; the very gods were dead! And he alive, alive? a wind-worn leaf All winter gibbeted upon that bough Whence the last fruit was reft? O mockery! Inert, of his own broken heart impelled, From the steep, solitary trysting-place, King Ægeus, like a stone, dropped in the sea.

A wraith of smoke, fast-driven against a flame, Yon by the crimsoning east the dark ship moved, Her herald noises strangely borne ashore: ‘Joy, joy!’ and interlinked: ‘O joy, O joy, Athens our mother! joy to all thy gates!’ And thunderous firm acclaim of minstrelsy, Laughter, and antheming, and salvos wild Outran the racing prow. But mute they lay, The blinded watchers, spent beyond desire, Wounded beyond this wonder’s balsaming.

Yet ever, thro’ the trembling lovely light, Known voice on voice re-echoed, face on face Uprose in resurrection. They were safe, And Athens, hark! from her long thraldom free! And Theseus, victor, sang and sailed with them, The pale unsistered Phædra for his bride, For whom was constant Ariadne cast On Naxos, where a god did comfort her. Theseus! who when his bark the shallows grazed, Leaped in the gentle waves for boyish glee, Gained the thronged highway, crossed it at a bound, Scaling the cliffs; and stood among them there, Clausus, and his dear Theron, and the rest, Nodding upon the clamorous crowd below; But they, as soon, had turned them blunt away, In hot resentment of that false one. He, O’erbrimming with frank welcomes, in dismay, Stricken with sight of unresponsive hands, Scenting disaster, reining up his tongue, Asked sharply for the king.

He understood After mad struggle and bewilderment, And gloomy gazing on the absent deeps. Down on the penitential rock he sank, All his fair body palpitant with shame, Syllabing agony: ‘Ægeus, Ægeus! ah, Glory of Hellas! dead for trust in me. Life-giver, irrecoverable friend, My father! ah, ah, loving father mine, Ah, dear my father!... I forgot the sail.’

And the great morn burst. On a hundred hills The marigold unbarred her casement bright.

LEGENDS

TARPEIA.

WOE: lightly to part with one’s soul as the sea with its foam! Woe to Tarpeia, Tarpeia, daughter of Rome!

Lo, now it was night, with the moon looking chill as she went: It was morn when the innocent stranger strayed into the tent.

The hostile Sabini were pleased, as one meshing a bird; She sang for them there in the ambush: they smiled as they heard.

Her sombre hair purpled in gleams, as she leaned to the light; All day she had idled and feasted, and now it was night.

The chief sat apart, heavy-browed, brooding elbow on knee; The armlets he wore were thrice royal, and wondrous to see:

Exquisite artifice, whorls of barbaric design, Frost’s fixèd mimicry; orbic imaginings fine

In sevenfold coils: and in orient glimmer from them, The variform voluble swinging of gem upon gem.

And the glory thereof sent fever and fire to her eye. ‘I had never such trinkets!’ she sighed,--like a lute was her sigh.

‘Were they mine at the plea, were they mine for the token, all told, Now the citadel sleeps, now my father the keeper is old,

‘If I go by the way that I know, and thou followest hard, If yet at the touch of Tarpeia the gates be unbarred?’

The chief trembled sharply for joy, then drew rein on his soul: ‘Of all this arm beareth I swear I will cede thee the whole.’

And up from the nooks of the camp, with hoarse plaudit outdealt, The bearded Sabini glanced hotly, and vowed as they knelt,

Bare-stretching the wrists that bore also the glowing great boon: ‘Yea! surely as over us shineth the lurid low moon,

‘Not alone of our lord, but of each of us take what he hath! Too poor is the guerdon, if thou wilt but show us the path.’

Her nostril upraised, like a fawn’s on the arrowy air, She sped; in a serpentine gleam to the precipice stair,

They climbed in her traces, they closed on their evil swift star: She bent to the latches, and swung the huge portal ajar.

Repulsed where they passed her, half-tearful for wounded belief, ‘The bracelets!’ she pleaded. Then faced her the leonine chief, And answered her: ‘Even as I promised, maid-merchant, I do.’ Down from his dark shoulder the baubles he sullenly drew.

‘This left arm shall nothing begrudge thee. Accept. Find it sweet. Give, too, O my brothers!’ The jewels he flung at her feet,

The jewels hard, heavy; she stooped to them, flushing with dread, But the shield he flung after: it clanged on her beautiful head.

Like the Apennine bells when the villagers’ warnings begin, Athwart the first lull broke the ominous din upon din;

With a ‘Hail, benefactress!’ upon her they heaped in their zeal Death: agate and iron; death: chrysoprase, beryl and steel.

’Neath the outcry of scorn, ’neath the sinewy tension and hurl, The moaning died slowly, and still they massed over the girl A mountain of shields! and the gemmy bright tangle in links, A torrent-like gush, pouring out on the grass from the chinks,

Pyramidal gold! the sumptuous monument won By the deed they had loved her for, doing, and loathed her for, done.

Such was the wage that they paid her, such the acclaim: All Rome was aroused with the thunder that buried her shame.

On surged the Sabini to battle. O you that aspire! Tarpeia the traitor had fill of her woman’s desire.

Woe: lightly to part with one’s soul as the sea with its foam! Woe to Tarpeia, Tarpeia, daughter of Rome!

THE CALIPH AND THE BEGGAR.

I.

SCORNER of the pleading faces, In the first year of his reign, From the lean crowd and its traces

Down the open orchard-lane Walked young Mahmoud in his glory, In his pomp and his disdain

And beyond all oratory, Music’s sweetness, ocean’s might, Fell a voice from branches hoary:

‘He whose heart is at life’s height, Who has wisdom, love, and riches, Islam’s greatest, dies this night.’

And he crossed the rampart ditches Blinded, and confused, and slow; High in palaced nooks and niches

Clanged his fathers’ shields a-row; And their turrets triple-jointed Shook with tempests of his woe.

Long past midnight, disanointed, Prone upon his breast he lay, Warring on that hour appointed:

But behold! at break of day,-- As if heaven itself had spoken,-- Blown across the bannered bay,

Over mart and mosque outbroken, Came the silver-solemn chime For some parted spirit’s token!

Mahmoud, with free breath sublime, Summoned one whose snow-locks heaving Made the vision of hoar Time;

And the red tides of thanksgiving On his lifted brow, he said: ‘In my city of the living,

Which, proclaimed of bells, is dead?’ And the gray beard answered: ‘Master, One who yesternight for bread

At thy gateway’s bronze pilaster Begged in vain: blind Selim, he, Victim of the old disaster.’

And the vassal suddenly Looked on his hard lord with wonder, For those tears were strange to see.

II.

Yet again, where boughs asunder Held the wavy orchard-tent, Sun-empurpled clusters under

In changed mood the Caliph went; And anew heard sounds upgather, (Chidings with caressings blent,

As the voice once of his father): ‘Haughty heart! not thou wert wise, Rich, belovèd; Selim, rather,

‘Islam’s prince in Allah’s eyes! Even the meek, in his great station, Freehold had of Paradise.’

III.

When the plague-wind’s desolation Pierced Bassora’s burning wall, Circled with a kneeling nation

Whom his mercies held in thrall, Died the Caliph, whispering tender Counsel to his liegemen tall:

‘One last service, children! render Me, whose pride the Lord forgave: Not by our supreme Defender,

‘Not beside the holy wave, Not in places where my race is Lay me! but in Selim’s grave.’

THE RISE OF THE TIDE.

A FISHERMAN gray, one night of yore, His nets upgathered, plied the oar, Right merrily heading for a haven, While summer winds blew blithe before.

He sat beneath his pennon white; His arms were brown, his eye was bright; Twice twenty years his breast had carried A ribbon from Lepanto’s fight.

A cove he spied at sunset’s edge, With pleasant trees and margin-sedge; And barefoot went by stakes down-driven Thro’ shallows wading from the ledge,

The boat drawn after; but behold! A check fell on his venture bold: He stood imprisoned, vainly leading The ropes in whitening fingers old.

Within that black and marshy sound His weight had sunken; he was bound Knee-deep! and as he beat and struggled, The mocking ripples danced around.

Long since the wood-thrush ceased her song; The summer wind grew fierce and strong; The shuddering moon went into hiding; Down came the storm to wreak him wrong.

Against the prow he leaned his chin, Thinking of all his strength had been; Then turned, and laughed with courage steady: ‘O ho! what straits we twain are in!’

And strove anew, unterrified, But lastly, wearied wholly, cried For succor, since his laden wherry Rocked ever on the coming tide.

* * * * *

‘I hear a cry of anguish sore!’ But straight his love had barred the door: ‘Bide here; the night bodes naught but danger.’ Loud beat the waves along the shore.

A bedded child made soft behest: ‘So loud the voice I cannot rest.’ ‘It is the rain, dear, in the garden.’ The cruel water binds his breast.

‘A lamp, a lamp! some traveller’s lost!’ But thro’ the tavern roared the host: ‘Nay, only thunder rude and heavy.’ Close to his lips the foam is tossed.

‘O listen well, my liege and king! Hark from gay halls this grievous thing!’ ‘Strange how the wild wind drowns our music!’ About his head the eddies swing.

At stroke of three the abbot meek Moved out among his flock to speak This word, with tears of doubt and wonder: ‘I had a dream; come forth and seek.’

With torch and flagon, forth they sped: The fisher glared from the harbor-bed! The tide, from his white hair down-fallen, All kindly ebbed, now he was dead.

Lepanto’s star shone fast and good; The sea-kelp wrapped him like a hood; His arms were stretched in woe to heaven; The boat had drifted: so he stood.

The Unavenged he seemed to be! Then fell each monk upon his knee: ‘Lord Christ!’ the abbot sang, awe-stricken: ‘Rest my old rival’s soul!’ sang he.

CHALUZ CASTLE.

THERE sped, at hint of treasure Dug from the garden-mould, Word to the doughty vassal: ‘Thy sovereign claims the gold!’ ‘Nay, Richard, come and wrest it!’ Said Vidomar the bold.

Uprose the Lionhearted, He locked his armor on: And over seas that morrow Around his gonfalon, The crash and hiss of battle Blazed up, and mocked the sun.

King Richard led his bowmen By Chaluz dark and high; Like rain and rack they followed His flashing storm-blue eye: Forth peered Bertrand de Gourdon From the turret stair thereby.

Thro’ morris-pikes and halberds The king rode out and in, His horse in gaudy trappings, His sabre drawn and thin: Down knelt Bertrand de Gourdon His strongbow at his chin.

O shrill that arrow quivered! And fierce and awful broke Acclaim in billowy thunder From all the foreign folk, At mighty Richard fallen Beneath a foreign oak!

Then leaped his English barons, Converging from afar, And loosed the flood of slaughter To the gates of Vidomar; And seized Bertrand de Gourdon, As clouds enmesh a star.

They brought the bright-cheeked archer Who scoffed not, neither feared, To the tent ringed in with faces That menaced in their beard; But the king’s face lay before him In the lamplight semisphered.

The king’s self, stern and pallid Gazed on the lad that day, And as if dreams were on him Besought him gently: ‘Say, Bertrand de Gourdon! wherefore Thou tak’st my life away?’

‘To venge my martyr-father, My foster-brethren three: In the name of thy dead foemen This thing I did to thee!’ And Richard perished, sighing: ‘Forgive him. Set him free!’

Alas for that late loving By seneschals betrayed! While yet upon his lashes The holy tear delayed, They bound Bertrand de Gourdon, They slew him in the glade.

Alas for noble spirits Whom fates perverse befall! Whence David in his beauty Gave healing unto Saul, The jeering wind beats ever On Chaluz castle wall.

THE WOOING PINE.

THERE was a lady, starshine in her look, Of lineage fierce, yet tremulous and kind As the field-gossamer, that down the wind Floats gleamingly from some enthistled nook; And wayward as her beauty was her mind That evermore bright errant journeys took.

Her father’s houndish lords she moved among, From feud and uproar dewily distraught; Winnowed her harp of its least pain; and brought Delight’s full freshet to a beggar’s tongue, Or spun amid her maids with chapel-thought That on a crystal pivot burned and swung.

But night on night, an exile from sleek rest, She nestled warm before her hearth-fire low, To watch its little wind-born planets go Orbing; and from the martyr-oak’s charred breast, In spirit-blue flame, in quintuple wild glow, The tossing leaves prolong their summer zest.

And ailingly, she needs must often sigh, Perplexèd out of her rich wonted glee, Whereof some unseen warder kept the key, And quell the dark defiance of her eye In patience, as a torch dips in the sea. And so, in brooding, went the white days by.

Unto the horsemen brave in war’s array She waved no token from her latticed house, Nor yet of princelings bare upon her brows Love’s salutation; but from such as they Turned, as a shy brook wheels from jutting boughs, And in a sidelong glimmer sobs away

Her sealèd sense beheld no man, nor heard, Nor lent its troth to any mortal bond, But lived heart-full of vital light beyond, And with miraculous tides of being stirred, Lingering tho’ eager, till the forest fond Winged to its own pure peace this homing bird.

For, sad with rains of unrevealed desire, And heavy with predestined glory’s beam, She to the water-girdled wood’s extreme Stole from her suitors’ pleas, her father’s ire, Far from their brambly ways to sit and dream, And make sweet plaint, in daylight’s dying fire;

When, one with lilt of her own veins, there rose Across remote and jasmine-pillared space, A voice of so persuasive, piteous grace That all her globèd sorrow did unclose To fragrant helpfulness in that still place, And sought, in tears, the breather of such woes.

And peering, of the level-shafted sun Evasive, listening from a mossy knoll, To kindling quiet sank her gentle soul, In awe at some high venture to be done, As when outpeals from Fame’s coercive pole, Too soon, on ears too weak, her clarion.

Burst in the golden air a wide and deep Torrent of harmony, that with clang and shock Might wreck a pinnace on an Afric rock, And on the ruin foamily o’erheap Bright reparation: ’twas a strength to mock Itself with swoons, and idle sobs, and sleep.

A splendor-hoary pine, of kingliest cheer, Enrooted ’neath her thrilling footfall, stood; Suffused with youth and gracious hardihood, Sown of the wind from heaven’s memorial sphere, With the red might of centuries in his blood, Unscarred and straight against the battling year,

From whose great heart those noble accents flowed, And from the melancholy arms outspread Whereon the aching winter long had snowed: ‘Come, sister! spouse! whom Love hath strangely led From bondage, come!’ And her most blessèd head She laid upon his breast as her abode.

O wonderful to hearing, touch, and gaze! This was of soul’s unrest and spirit’s scar Solving and healing; this the late full star Superillumining the hither ways, And the old blind allegiance set ajar Like a dark door, against its flooded rays.

All intertangled fell their dusky hair In tender twilight’s bowery recess; And that fair bride of her heart-heaviness Was disenthralled in love’s Lethean air, Where orchids hung upon the wind’s caress, And the first tawny lily made her lair.

Dear minions served them in the covert green: The squirrel coy, the beetle in his mail, The moth, the bee, the throbbing nightingale, And the gaunt wolf, their vassal; to them e’en The widowed serpent, on her vengeful trail, Upcast an iridescent eye serene.

The last tired envoy from the realm bereaved Blew at the drawbridge, riding castlewards; The fisher-folk along the beachen shards Pierced, calling, the cool thickets silvern leaved; And grandams meagre, and road-roaming bards Shared her sad theme, for whom men vainly grieved.

But lad and lass, with parted mouth a-bloom, Who strayed thereby in April’s misty prime, A vision freshening to the after-time Caught thro’ the rifts of uninvaded gloom,-- A maiden, honey-lipped as Tuscan rhyme, And her young hunter, with his sombre plume.

For dynasties tho’ passing-bells be tolled, Theirs is the midmost ecstasy of June, Her music, her imperishable moon; While Time, that elsewhere is so rough and cold, Like a soft child, flower-plucking all forenoon, Gathers the ages from this garden old.

Calm housemates with them in their forest lone Do Freedom, Innocence and Joy, abide: And aye as one who into Heaven hath died Thro’ mortal aisleways of melodious moan, The boatman sees, at dusk, from Arno’s tide, The Everlasting Lover with his own!

THE SERPENT’S CROWN.

SAID he:

‘O diligent rover! browned under many a heaven, Treasure and trophy you carry, spoils from the east and the west; Yet I fear that you passed it over, the chief clime out of the seven, My wonder-land and my island, where the chance of a knight is best.

‘There from the black mid-forest, past hemlock guards in waiting (Heard you not of the legend?), when the wide sun winks at noon, On the rock-ways sharpest, hoarest, warily undulating, A star-dappled serpent hurries, with the odorous grace of June.

‘Over her human forehead, reared among glens abysmal, Glitters a crown gold-gossamer; only a moment’s arc Crosses the creature torrid, flexile, palpitant, prismal, Then breaks on the earth, a terror spiralling into the dark.

‘Every to-day and to-morrow, as the foreign old belfries tremble With the hammer-hard heels of noon, just that instant, nor more nor less, In the blue witch-reptile’s furrow her shape stands to dissemble, And the barbed tongue tempts and entices, and the fire-eyes acquiesce.

‘Once she was a wily woman, whose glory the gods have finished, Whose handicraft still is ruin, whose glee is to snare and kill, Defier of spearman and bowman, her empery undiminished; But whoso can overcome her, shall bend the world to his will!

‘Therefore the knights importune to spur thro’ the jungles fruity, Many a lad and a hunter and a dreamer there ventureth; For the king tends power and fortune to the slayer of that demon-beauty, And awards him her crown thrice-charmèd whose captor can outwit Death,

‘Aye, ride above storm and censure, and lord it o’er time and distance, In the maddening-sweet assurance of bliss like a rose-rain shed, All for a wood-path venture, a gallant alert resistance, And a stroke of the steel in circle about that exquisite head!

‘A task for your young drilled muscle!’ But the other, in soft derision

Answered him:

‘Oh, I had once some wild schemes under my hat: Some thrill for this same snake-tussle, and the heirdom of life Elysian, Long peace, long loving, long praises: but I’ve kindled and cooled on that!

‘Ten years have I been a ranger, I have hewn all dread to the centre; I have learned to sift out values; my soul is at rest and free. If that be your boon for danger, on a dull safe youth to enter, Tho’ some may covet the guerdon, ’tis a poor enough thing to me.

‘I choose, might I come and return so, to a cause, a friend and a foeman Staunch, to endure for the rest but as a moth, or a marigold! Let the philosophers yearn so, the king bribe squire and yeoman! Not for my lease immortal the serpent shall be cajoled.

‘To strike her down avenges her slain; but is evil ended? The fashion dies; the function abides, and has fresher scope. What is to be won? He cringes who would seize, were the choice extended, For the risk elsewhere of living, here only survival’s hope!

‘I would keep my lot mine purely, cast in with men’s forever; Their transient tempest sooner than these Sybaritic calms; Tho’ against the cobra, surely, I would pit my soul’s endeavor, Her crown and its lonely meaning I would scorn to take in alms.

‘Rather than ease unshaken, durance that sloth unhallows, Once and for all, in honor, an end: what’s the forfeit crown If the chance of my short term taken run plump on the axe or the gallows, So one brother’s fetter be loosened, or one tyrant trampled down?