"She comes! her presence, like a moving songBreathed soft of loveliest lips and lute-like tongue,Sways all the gurgling forests from their rest:I fancy where her rustling foot is pressed,So faltering, love seems timid, but how strongThat darling love that flutters in her breast!"She comes! and the green vistas are stormed thro'—As if wild wings, wet-varnished with dripped dew,Had dashed a sudden sunbeam tempest past,—With her eyes' inspiration clearly chaste;A rhythmic lavishment of bright gray blue,Long arrows of her eyes perfection cast."Ah, God! she comes! and, Love, I feel thy breath,Like the soft South who idly wanderethThro' musical leaves of laughing laziness,Page on before her, how sweet—none can guess!To say my soul 'Here's harmony dear as deathTo sigh wild vows, or utterless, to bless.'"She comes! ah, God! and all my brain is braveTo war for words to laud her and to laveHer queenly beauty in such vows whereofMay hush melodious cooings of a dove:For her light feet the favored path to paveWith oaths, like roses, raving mad with love."She comes! in me a passion—as the moonWorks madness in strong men—my blood doth swoonTowards her glory; and I feel her soulCling lip to lip with mine; and now the wholeMix with me, aching like a tender tuneExhausted; lavished in a god's control."She comes! ah, Christ! ye eager stars that graceThe fragmentary skies, that dimple space,Clink, and I hear her harp-sweet footfalls come:Ah, wood-indulging, violet-vague perfume,Art of her presence, of her wild-flower face,That like some gracious blossom stains the gloom?"Oh, living exultation of the blood!That now—as sunbursts, the almighty moodOf some moved god, scatter the storm that roars,And hush—her love like some spent splendor poursInto it all immaculate maidenhood,And all the heart that hesitates—adores."Vanquished! so vanquished!—ah, triumphant sweet!The height of heaven—supine at thy feet!Where love feasts crowned, and basks in such a glareAs hearts of suns burn, in thine eyes and hair,Unutterable with raveled fires that cheatThe ardent clay of me and make me air."And so, rare witch, thy blood, like some lewd wine,Shall subtly make me, like thee, half divine;And,—sweet rebellion!—clasp thee till thou urgeTo combat close of savage kisses: surgeA war that rubies all thy proud cheeks' shine,—Slain, struggling blushes,—till white truce emerge."My life for thine, thus bartered lip to lip!A striving being pulsant, that shall slipLike song and flame in sense from thee to me;Nor held, but quick rebartered thence to thee:So our two loves be as a singleship,Ten thousand loves as one eternally."
"She comes! her presence, like a moving songBreathed soft of loveliest lips and lute-like tongue,Sways all the gurgling forests from their rest:I fancy where her rustling foot is pressed,So faltering, love seems timid, but how strongThat darling love that flutters in her breast!
"She comes! her presence, like a moving song
Breathed soft of loveliest lips and lute-like tongue,
Sways all the gurgling forests from their rest:
I fancy where her rustling foot is pressed,
So faltering, love seems timid, but how strong
That darling love that flutters in her breast!
"She comes! and the green vistas are stormed thro'—As if wild wings, wet-varnished with dripped dew,Had dashed a sudden sunbeam tempest past,—With her eyes' inspiration clearly chaste;A rhythmic lavishment of bright gray blue,Long arrows of her eyes perfection cast.
"She comes! and the green vistas are stormed thro'—
As if wild wings, wet-varnished with dripped dew,
Had dashed a sudden sunbeam tempest past,
—With her eyes' inspiration clearly chaste;
A rhythmic lavishment of bright gray blue,
Long arrows of her eyes perfection cast.
"Ah, God! she comes! and, Love, I feel thy breath,Like the soft South who idly wanderethThro' musical leaves of laughing laziness,Page on before her, how sweet—none can guess!To say my soul 'Here's harmony dear as deathTo sigh wild vows, or utterless, to bless.'
"Ah, God! she comes! and, Love, I feel thy breath,
Like the soft South who idly wandereth
Thro' musical leaves of laughing laziness,
Page on before her, how sweet—none can guess!
To say my soul 'Here's harmony dear as death
To sigh wild vows, or utterless, to bless.'
"She comes! ah, God! and all my brain is braveTo war for words to laud her and to laveHer queenly beauty in such vows whereofMay hush melodious cooings of a dove:For her light feet the favored path to paveWith oaths, like roses, raving mad with love.
"She comes! ah, God! and all my brain is brave
To war for words to laud her and to lave
Her queenly beauty in such vows whereof
May hush melodious cooings of a dove:
For her light feet the favored path to pave
With oaths, like roses, raving mad with love.
"She comes! in me a passion—as the moonWorks madness in strong men—my blood doth swoonTowards her glory; and I feel her soulCling lip to lip with mine; and now the wholeMix with me, aching like a tender tuneExhausted; lavished in a god's control.
"She comes! in me a passion—as the moon
Works madness in strong men—my blood doth swoon
Towards her glory; and I feel her soul
Cling lip to lip with mine; and now the whole
Mix with me, aching like a tender tune
Exhausted; lavished in a god's control.
"She comes! ah, Christ! ye eager stars that graceThe fragmentary skies, that dimple space,Clink, and I hear her harp-sweet footfalls come:Ah, wood-indulging, violet-vague perfume,Art of her presence, of her wild-flower face,That like some gracious blossom stains the gloom?
"She comes! ah, Christ! ye eager stars that grace
The fragmentary skies, that dimple space,
Clink, and I hear her harp-sweet footfalls come:
Ah, wood-indulging, violet-vague perfume,
Art of her presence, of her wild-flower face,
That like some gracious blossom stains the gloom?
"Oh, living exultation of the blood!That now—as sunbursts, the almighty moodOf some moved god, scatter the storm that roars,And hush—her love like some spent splendor poursInto it all immaculate maidenhood,And all the heart that hesitates—adores.
"Oh, living exultation of the blood!
That now—as sunbursts, the almighty mood
Of some moved god, scatter the storm that roars,
And hush—her love like some spent splendor pours
Into it all immaculate maidenhood,
And all the heart that hesitates—adores.
"Vanquished! so vanquished!—ah, triumphant sweet!The height of heaven—supine at thy feet!Where love feasts crowned, and basks in such a glareAs hearts of suns burn, in thine eyes and hair,Unutterable with raveled fires that cheatThe ardent clay of me and make me air.
"Vanquished! so vanquished!—ah, triumphant sweet!
The height of heaven—supine at thy feet!
Where love feasts crowned, and basks in such a glare
As hearts of suns burn, in thine eyes and hair,
Unutterable with raveled fires that cheat
The ardent clay of me and make me air.
"And so, rare witch, thy blood, like some lewd wine,Shall subtly make me, like thee, half divine;And,—sweet rebellion!—clasp thee till thou urgeTo combat close of savage kisses: surgeA war that rubies all thy proud cheeks' shine,—Slain, struggling blushes,—till white truce emerge.
"And so, rare witch, thy blood, like some lewd wine,
Shall subtly make me, like thee, half divine;
And,—sweet rebellion!—clasp thee till thou urge
To combat close of savage kisses: surge
A war that rubies all thy proud cheeks' shine,—
Slain, struggling blushes,—till white truce emerge.
"My life for thine, thus bartered lip to lip!A striving being pulsant, that shall slipLike song and flame in sense from thee to me;Nor held, but quick rebartered thence to thee:So our two loves be as a singleship,Ten thousand loves as one eternally."
"My life for thine, thus bartered lip to lip!
A striving being pulsant, that shall slip
Like song and flame in sense from thee to me;
Nor held, but quick rebartered thence to thee:
So our two loves be as a singleship,
Ten thousand loves as one eternally."
Babbled the woodland like a rocky brook;And as the ecstacy of foliage shook,Hot pieces of bright, sunny heavens glancedLike polished silver thro' pale leaves that danced.As one hath seen some green-gowned huntress fair,Morn in her cheeks and midnight in her hair,Eyes clear as hollow dews; clean limbs as litheAs limbs swift morning moves; a voice as blitheAs high hawk's ringing thro' the falling dews;Pant thro' the bramble-matted avenues,—Where brier and thorn have gashed her gown's pinched green,About bright breasts and arms, the milky sheenOf white skin healthy pouting out; her face,Ardent and flushed, fixed on the lordly chase.
Babbled the woodland like a rocky brook;And as the ecstacy of foliage shook,Hot pieces of bright, sunny heavens glancedLike polished silver thro' pale leaves that danced.As one hath seen some green-gowned huntress fair,Morn in her cheeks and midnight in her hair,Eyes clear as hollow dews; clean limbs as litheAs limbs swift morning moves; a voice as blitheAs high hawk's ringing thro' the falling dews;Pant thro' the bramble-matted avenues,—Where brier and thorn have gashed her gown's pinched green,About bright breasts and arms, the milky sheenOf white skin healthy pouting out; her face,Ardent and flushed, fixed on the lordly chase.
Babbled the woodland like a rocky brook;
And as the ecstacy of foliage shook,
Hot pieces of bright, sunny heavens glanced
Like polished silver thro' pale leaves that danced.
As one hath seen some green-gowned huntress fair,
Morn in her cheeks and midnight in her hair,
Eyes clear as hollow dews; clean limbs as lithe
As limbs swift morning moves; a voice as blithe
As high hawk's ringing thro' the falling dews;
Pant thro' the bramble-matted avenues,—
Where brier and thorn have gashed her gown's pinched green,
About bright breasts and arms, the milky sheen
Of white skin healthy pouting out; her face,
Ardent and flushed, fixed on the lordly chase.
THEeve now came; and shadows cowled the wayLike somber palmers, who have kneeled to prayBeside a wayside shrine, and rosy rolledUp the capacious West a grainy gold,Luxuriant fluid, burned thro' strong, keen skies,Which seemed as towering gates of ParadiseSurged dim, far glories on the hungry gaze.And from that sunset down the roseate ways,To Accolon, who with his idle lute,Reclined in revery against a rootOf a great oak, a fragment of that West,A dwarf, in crimson satin tightly dressed,Skipped like a leaf the rather frosts have burnedAnd cozened to a fever red, that turnedAnd withered all its sap. And this one cameFrom Camelot; from his beloved dame,Morgane the Fay. He on his shoulder boreA burning blade wrought strange with wizard lore,Runed mystically; and a scabbard whichGlared venomous, with angry jewels rich.He, louting to the knight, "Sir knight," said he,"Your lady with all sweetest courtesyAssures you—ah, unworthy messengerI of such brightness!—of that love of her."Then doffing that great baldric, with the swordTo him he gave: "And this from him, my lordKing Arthur; even his Excalibur,The sovereign blade, which Merlin gat of her,The Ladye of the Lake, who LauncelotFostered from infanthood, as well you wot,In some wierd mere in Briogn's tangled landsOf charms and mist; where filmy fairy bandsBy lazy moons of Autumn spin their fillOf giddy morrice on the frosty hill.By goodness of her favor this is sent;Who craved King Arthur boon with this intent:That soon for her a desperate combat oneWith one of mightier prowess were begun;And with the sword Excalibur right sureWere she against that champion to endure.The blade flame-trenchant, but more prize the sheathWhich stauncheth blood and guardeth from all death."He said: and Accolon looked on the sword,A mystic falchion, and, "It shall wend hardWith him thro' thee, unconquerable blade,Whoe'er he be, who on my Queen hath laidStress of unworship: and the hours as slowAs palsied hours in Purgatory goFor those unmassed, till I have slain this foe!My purse, sweet page; and now—to her who gave,Dispatch! and this:—to all commands—her slave,To death obedient. In love or warHer love to make me all the warrior.Plead her grace mercy for so long delayFrom love that dies an hourly death each dayTill her white hands kissed he shall kiss her face,By which his life breathes in continual grace."Thus he commanded; and incontinentThe dwarf departed like a red ray sentFrom rich down-flowering clouds of suffused lightWinged o'er long, purple glooms; and with the night,Whose votaress cypress stoled the dying strifeSoftly of day, and for whose perished lifeGave heaven her golden stars, in dreamy thoughtWends Accolon to hazy Chariot.And it befell him; wandering one dawn,As was his wont, across a dew-drenched lawn,Glad with night freshness and elastic healthIn sky and earth that lavished worlds of wealthFrom heady breeze and racy smells, a knightAnd lofty lady met he; gay bedight,With following of six esquires; and theyHeld on straight wrists the jess'd gerfalcon gray,And rode a-hawking o'er the leas of GoreFrom Ontzlake's manor, where he languished; soreHurt in the lists, a spear thrust in his thigh:Who had besought—for much he feared to die—This knight and his fair lady, as they rodeTo hawk near Chariot, the Queen's abode,That they would pray her in all charityFare post to him,—for in chirurgeryOf all that land she was the greatest leach,—And her to his recovery beseech.So, Accolon saluted, they drew rein,And spake their message,—for right over fainWere they toward their sport,—that he might barePetition to that lady. But, not thereWas Arthur's sister, as they well must wot;But now a se'nnight lay at Camelot,Of Guenevere the guest; and there with herFour other queens of farther Britain were:Isoud of Ireland, she of Cornwall Queen,King Mark's wife; who right rarely then was seenAt court for jealousy of Mark, who knewHer to that lance of Lyonesse how trueSince mutual quaffing of a philter; whileHow guilty Guenevere on such could smile:She of Northgales and she of Eastland: andShe of the Out Isles Queen. A fairer bandFor sovereignty and love and lovelinessWas not in any realm to grace and bless.Then quoth the knight, "Ay? see how fortune turnsAnd varies like an April day, that burnsNow welkins blue with calm, now scowls them down,Revengeful, with a black storm's wrinkled frown.For, look, this Damas, who so long hath lainA hiding vermin, fearful of all pain,Dark in his bandit towers by the deep,Wakes from a five years' torpor and a sleep;So sends dispatch a courier to my lordWith, 'Lo! behold! to-morrow with the swordEarl Damas by his knight at point of lanceDecides the issue of inheritance,Body to body, or by champion.'Right hard to find such ere to-morrow dawn.Though sore bestead lies Ontzlake, and he could,Right fain were he to save his livelihood.Then mused Sir Accolon: "The adventure goesEv'n as my Lady fashioneth; who knowsBut what her arts develop this and make?"And thus to those: "His battle I will take,—And he be so conditioned, harried ofEstate and life,—in knighthood and for love.Conduct me thither."And, gramercied, thenMounted a void horse of that wondering train,And thence departed with two squires. And theyCame to a lone, dismantled prioryHard by a castle gray on whose square towers,Machicolated, o'er the forest's bowers,The immemorial morning bloomed and blushed.A woodland manor olden, dark embushedIn wild and woody hills. And then one woundAn echoy horn, and with the boundless soundThe drawbridge rumbled moatward clanking, andInto a paved court passed that little band....When all the world was morning, gleam and glareOf far deluging glory, and the airSang with the wood-bird, like a humming lyreSwept bold of minstrel fingers wire on wire;Ere that fixed hour of prime came Arthur armedFor battle royally. A black steed warmedA fierce impatience 'neath him cased in mail,Huge, foreign; and accoutered head to tailIn costly sendal; rearward wine-dark red,Amber as sunlight to his fretful head.Firm, heavy armor blue had Arthur onBeneath a robe of honor, like the dawn,Satin and diapered and purflewed deepWith lordly golden purple; whence did sweepTwo hanging acorn tuftings of fine gold,And at his thigh a falchion, long and bold,Heavy and triple-edged; its scabbard, redCordovan leather; thence a baldric ledOf new cut deer-skin; this laborious wrought,And curiously with slides of gold was fraught,And buckled with a buckle white that shone,Bone of the sea-horse, tongued with jet-black bone.And, sapphire-set, a burgonet of goldBarbaric, wyvern-crested whose throat rolledA flame-sharp tongue of agate, and whose eyesGlowed venomous great rubies fierce of prize.And in his hand, a wiry lance of ash,Lattened with finest silver, like a flashOf sunlight in the morning shone a-gash.Clad was his squire most richly; he whose headCurled with close locks of yellow tinged to red:Of noble bearing; fair face; hawk eyes keen,And youthful, bearded chin. Right well beseen,Scarfed with blue satin; on his shoulder strongOne broad gold brooch chased strangely, thick and long.His legs in hose of rarest Totness clad,And parti-colored leathern shoes he hadGold-latched; and in his hand a bannered spearSpeckled and bronzen sharpened in the air.So with his following, while lay like scarsThe blue mist thin along the woodland bars,Thro' dew and fog, thro' shadow and thro' rayJoustward Earl Damas led the forest way.Then to King Arthur when arrived were theseTo where the lists shone silken thro' the trees,Bannered and draped, a wimpled damsel came,Secret, upon a palfrey all aflameWith sweat and heat of hurry, and, "From her,Your sister Morgane, your Excalibur,With tender greeting: For ye well have needIn this adventure of him. So, God speed!"And so departed suddenly: nor knewThe king but this his weapon tried and true.But brittle this and fashioned like thereof,And false of baser metal, in unloveAnd treason to his life, of her of kinHalf sister, Morgane—an unnatural sin.Then heralded into the lists he rode.Opposed flashed Accolon, who light bestrode,Exultant, proud in talisman of that sword,A dun horse lofty as a haughty lord,Pure white about each hollow, pasterned hoof.Equipped shone knight and steed in arms of proof,Dappled with yellow variegated plateOf Spanish laton. And of sovereign stateHis surcoat robe of honor white and blackOf satin, red-silk needled front and backThen blackly bordered. And above his robeThat two-edged sword,—a throbbing golden globeOf vicious jewels,—thrust its burning hilt,Its broad belt, tawny and with gold-work gilt,Clasped with the eyelid of a black sea-horseWhose tongue was rosy gold. And stern as ForceHis visored helmet burned like fire, of richAnd bronzen laton hammered; and on whichAn hundred crystals glittered, thick as onA silver web bright-studding dews of dawn.The casque's tail crest a taloned griffin ramped,In whose horned brow one virtuous jewel stamped.An ashen spear round-shafted, overlaidWith fine blue silver, whereon colors played,Firm in his iron gauntlet lithely swayed.Intense on either side an instant stoodGlittering as serpents which, with Spring renewed,In glassy scales meet on some greening way,Angry advance, quick tongues at poisonous play.Then clanged a herald's clarion and sharp heels,Harsh-spurred, each champion's springing courser feelsTouch to red onset; the aventured spearsHurled like two sun-bursts of a storm when clearsLaborious thunders; and in middle courseShrieked shrill the unpierced shields; mailed horse from horseLashed madly pawing—and a hoarse roar rangFrom buckram lists, till the wild echoes sangOf leagues on leagues of forest and of cliff.Rigid the proof-shelled warriors passed and stiffWhither their squires fresher spears upheld;Nor stayed to breathe; but scarcely firmly selledLaunched deadly forward. Shield to savage shieldOpposing; crest to crest, whose fronts did wieldA towering war's unmercifulest scath;Rocking undaunted, glared wan withering wrathFrom balls of jeweled eyes, and raging stoodSlim, slippery bodies, in the sun like blood.The lance of Accolon, as on a rockLong storm-launched foam breaks baffled, with the shock,On Arthur's sounding shield burst splintered force;But him resistless Arthur's,—high from horseSell-lifted,—ruinous bare crashing onA long sword's length; unsaddled AccolonFor one stunned moment lay. Then rising, drewThe great sword at his hip, that shone like dewFresh flashed in morn. "Descend;" he stiffly said,"To proof of better weapons head for head!Enough of spears, to swords!" and so the knightAddressed him to the King. Dismounting light,Arthur his moon-bright brand unsheathed, and highEach covering shield gleamed slanting to the sky,Relentless, strong, and stubborn; underneathTheir wary shelters foined the glittering deathOf stolid steel thrust livid arm to arm:As cloud to cloud growls up a soaring stormAbove the bleak wood and lithe lightnings workBrave blades wild warring, in the black that lurk,Thus fenced and thrust—one tortoise shield descends,Leaps a fierce sword shrill,—like a flame which sendsA long fang heavenward,—for a crushing stroke;Swings hard and trenchant, and, resounding heard,Sings surly helmward full; defiance rearedSoars to a brother blow to shriek againBlade on brave blade. And o'er the battered plain,Forward and backward, blade on baleful blade,Teeth clenched as visors where the fierce eyes madeA cavernous, smouldering fury, shield at shield,Unflinchingly remained and scorned to yield.So Arthur drew aside to rest uponHis falchion for a pause; but AccolonAs yet, thro' virtue of that magic sheathFresh and almighty, being no nearer deathThro' loss of blood than when the trial begun,Chafed with delay. But Arthur with the sun,Its thirsty heat, the loss from wounds of blood,Leaned fainting weary and so resting stood.Cried Accolon, "Here is no time for rest!Defend thee!" and straight on the monarch pressed;"Defend or yield thee as one recreant!"Full on his helm a hewing blow did plant,Which beat a flying fire from the steel;Smote, like one drunk with wine, the King did reel,Breath, brain bewildered. Then, infuriate,Nerve-stung with vigor by that blow, in hateGnarled all his strength into one stroke of might,And in both fists the huge blade knotted tight,Swung red, terrific to a sundering stroke.—As some bright wind that hurls th' uprooted oak,—Boomed full the beaten burgonet he wore:Hacked thro' and thro' the crest, and cleanly shoreThe golden boasting of its griffin fierceWith hollow clamor down astounded ears:No further thence—but, shattered to the grass,That brittle blade, crushed as if made of glass,Into hot pieces like a broken rayBurst sunward and in feverish fragments lay.Then groaned the King unarmed; and so he knewThis no Excalibur; that tried and trueMost perfect tempered, runed and mystical.Sobbed, "Oh, hell-false! betray me?"— Then withalHim seemed this foe, who fought with so much stress,So long untiring, and with no distressOf wounds or heat, through treachery bare his brand;And then he knew it by its hilt that handClutched to an avenging stroke. For AccolonIn madness urged the belted battle onHis King defenseless; who, the hilted crossOf that false weapon grasped, beneath the bossOf his deep-dented shield crouched; and aroundCrawled the unequal conflict o'er the ground,Sharded with shattered spears and off-hewn bitsOf shivered steel and gold that burnt in fits.So hunted, yet defiant, coweringBeneath his bossy shield's defense, the KingPersisted stoutly. And, devising stillHow to secure his sword and by what skill,Him so it fortuned when most desperate:In that hot chase they came where shattered lateLay tossed the truncheon of a bursten lance,Which deftly seized, to Accolon's advanceHe wielded valorous. Against the fistSmote where the gauntlet husked the nervous wrist,Which strained the weapon to a wrathful blow;Palsied, the tightened sinews of his foeLoosened from effort, and, the falchion seized,Easy was yielded. Then the wroth King squeezed,—Hurling the moon-disk of his shield afar,—Him in both knotted arms of wiry war,Rocked sidewise twice or thrice,—as one hath seenSome stern storm take an ash tree, roaring green,Nodding its sappy bulk of trunk and boughsTo dizziness, from tough, coiled roots carouseIts long height thundering;—so King Arthur shookSir Accolon and headlong flung; then took,Tearing away, that scabbard from his side,Tossed thro' the breathless lists, that far and wideGulped in the battle voiceless. Then right wrothSecured Excalibur, and grasped of bothWild hands swung glittering and brought bitter downOn rising Accolon; steel, bone and brawnHewed thro' that blow; unsettled every sense:Bathed in a world of blood his limbs grew tenseAnd writhen then ungathered limp with death.Bent to him Arthur, from the brow beneath,Unlaced the helm and doffed it and so asked,When the fair forehead's hair curled dark uncasqued,"Say! ere I slay thee, whence and what thou art?What King, what court be thine? and from what part,Speak! or thou diest!—Yet, that brow, methinksI have beheld it—where? say, ere death drinksThe soul-light from life's cups, thine eyes! thou art—What art thou, speak!"He answered slow and shortWith tortured breathing: "I?—one, AccolonOf Gaul, a knight of Arthur's court—at dawn—God wot what now I am for love so slain!"Then seemed the victor spasmed with keen pain,Covered with mailéd hands his visored face;"Thou Accolon? art Accolon?" a spaceExclaimed and conned him: then asked softly, "Say,Whence gatest thou this sword, or in what wayThou hadst it, speak?" But wandering that knightHeard dully, senses clodded thick with night;Then rallying earthward: "Woe, woe worth the sword!—From love of love who lives, for love yet lord!—Morgane!—thy love for love in love hadst madeMe strong o'er kings an hundred! to have swayedBritain! had this not risen like a fate,Spawned up, a Hell's miscarriage sired of Hate!—A king? thou curse! a gold and blood crowned king,With Arthur's sister queen?—'Twas she who schemed.And there at Chariot we loved and dreamedGone some twelve months. There so we had devolvedHow Arthur's death were compassed and resolvedEach liberal morning, like an almoner,Prodigal of silver to the begging air;Each turbulent eve that in heaven's turquoise rolledConvulsive fiery glories deep in gold;Each night—hilarious heavens vast of night!—Boisterous with quivering stars buoyed bubble-lightIn flexuous labyrinths o' the intricate sphere.We dreamed and spake Ambition at our ear—Nay! a crowned curse and crimeful clad she came,To me, that woman, brighter than a flame;And laughed on me with pouting lips up-pursedFor kisses which I gave for love: How cursedWas I thereafter! For, lie fleshed in truth,She shrivels to a hag! Behind that youthUgly, misshapen; Lust not Love, whereinGerms pregnant seed of Hell for hate and sin.—Iseek for such the proudest height of seat,King Arthur's kingdom, and bold fame complete?—Harlot!—sweet spouse of Urience King of Gore!—Sweet harlot!—here's that death determined o'er!And now thou hast thy dream, and dreaming grieveThat death so ruins it?—Thy mouth to shrieve!—Nay, nay, I love thee! witness bare this field!I love thee!—heart, dost love her and yet yield?—Enow! enow! so hale me hence to die!"Then anger in the good King's gloomy eyeBurnt, instant-embered, as one oft may seeA star leak out of heaven and cease to be.Slow from his visage he his visor raised,And on the dying one mute moment gazed,Then low bespake him grimly: "Accolon,I am that King." He with an awful groan,Blade-battered as he was, beheld and knew;Strained to his tottering knees and haggard drewUp full his armored tallness, hoarsely cried,"The King!" and at his mailed feet clashed and died.Then rose a world of anxious faces pressedAbout King Arthur, who, though wound-distressed,Bespake that multitude: "Whiles breath and powerRemain, judge we these brethren: This harsh hourHath yielded Damas all this rich estate;—So it is his—allotted his of FateThro' might of arms; so let it be to him.For, stood our oath on knighthood not so slimBut that it hath this strong conclusion:This much by us as errant knight is done:Now our decree as King of Britain, hear:We do adjudge this Damas banned fore'er,Outlawed and exiled from all shores and islesOf farthest Britain in its many miles.One month be his—no more! then will we comeEven with an iron host to seal his doom;If he be not departed over seas,Hang naked from his battlements to pleaseOf carrion ravens and wild hawks the craws.Thus much for Damas. But our pleasure drawsToward sir Ontzlake, whom it likes the KingTo take into his knightly followingOf that Round Table royal.—Stand our word!—But I am overweary; take my sword;—Unharness me; for, battle worn, I tireWith bruises' achings and wounds mad with fire;And monasteryward would I right fain,Even Glastonbury and with me the slain."So bare they then the wounded King away,The dead behind. So, closed the Autumn day.* * * * * * *But when within that abbey he waxed strong,The King remembering him of all the wrongThat Damas had inflicted on the land,Commanded Lionell with a staunch bandThis weed's out-stamping if still rooted there.He riding thither to that robber lair,Led Arthur's hopefulest helms, when thorn on thornReddened an hundred spears one winter morn;Built up, a bulk of bastioned rock on rock,Vast battlements, that loomed above the shockOf freshening foam that climbed with haling hands,Lone cloudy-clustered turrets in loud landsSet desolate,—mournful o'er wide, frozen flats,—Found hollow towers the haunt of owls and bats.
THEeve now came; and shadows cowled the wayLike somber palmers, who have kneeled to prayBeside a wayside shrine, and rosy rolledUp the capacious West a grainy gold,Luxuriant fluid, burned thro' strong, keen skies,Which seemed as towering gates of ParadiseSurged dim, far glories on the hungry gaze.And from that sunset down the roseate ways,To Accolon, who with his idle lute,Reclined in revery against a rootOf a great oak, a fragment of that West,A dwarf, in crimson satin tightly dressed,Skipped like a leaf the rather frosts have burnedAnd cozened to a fever red, that turnedAnd withered all its sap. And this one cameFrom Camelot; from his beloved dame,Morgane the Fay. He on his shoulder boreA burning blade wrought strange with wizard lore,Runed mystically; and a scabbard whichGlared venomous, with angry jewels rich.He, louting to the knight, "Sir knight," said he,"Your lady with all sweetest courtesyAssures you—ah, unworthy messengerI of such brightness!—of that love of her."Then doffing that great baldric, with the swordTo him he gave: "And this from him, my lordKing Arthur; even his Excalibur,The sovereign blade, which Merlin gat of her,The Ladye of the Lake, who LauncelotFostered from infanthood, as well you wot,In some wierd mere in Briogn's tangled landsOf charms and mist; where filmy fairy bandsBy lazy moons of Autumn spin their fillOf giddy morrice on the frosty hill.By goodness of her favor this is sent;Who craved King Arthur boon with this intent:That soon for her a desperate combat oneWith one of mightier prowess were begun;And with the sword Excalibur right sureWere she against that champion to endure.The blade flame-trenchant, but more prize the sheathWhich stauncheth blood and guardeth from all death."He said: and Accolon looked on the sword,A mystic falchion, and, "It shall wend hardWith him thro' thee, unconquerable blade,Whoe'er he be, who on my Queen hath laidStress of unworship: and the hours as slowAs palsied hours in Purgatory goFor those unmassed, till I have slain this foe!My purse, sweet page; and now—to her who gave,Dispatch! and this:—to all commands—her slave,To death obedient. In love or warHer love to make me all the warrior.Plead her grace mercy for so long delayFrom love that dies an hourly death each dayTill her white hands kissed he shall kiss her face,By which his life breathes in continual grace."Thus he commanded; and incontinentThe dwarf departed like a red ray sentFrom rich down-flowering clouds of suffused lightWinged o'er long, purple glooms; and with the night,Whose votaress cypress stoled the dying strifeSoftly of day, and for whose perished lifeGave heaven her golden stars, in dreamy thoughtWends Accolon to hazy Chariot.
THEeve now came; and shadows cowled the way
Like somber palmers, who have kneeled to pray
Beside a wayside shrine, and rosy rolled
Up the capacious West a grainy gold,
Luxuriant fluid, burned thro' strong, keen skies,
Which seemed as towering gates of Paradise
Surged dim, far glories on the hungry gaze.
And from that sunset down the roseate ways,
To Accolon, who with his idle lute,
Reclined in revery against a root
Of a great oak, a fragment of that West,
A dwarf, in crimson satin tightly dressed,
Skipped like a leaf the rather frosts have burned
And cozened to a fever red, that turned
And withered all its sap. And this one came
From Camelot; from his beloved dame,
Morgane the Fay. He on his shoulder bore
A burning blade wrought strange with wizard lore,
Runed mystically; and a scabbard which
Glared venomous, with angry jewels rich.
He, louting to the knight, "Sir knight," said he,
"Your lady with all sweetest courtesy
Assures you—ah, unworthy messenger
I of such brightness!—of that love of her."
Then doffing that great baldric, with the sword
To him he gave: "And this from him, my lord
King Arthur; even his Excalibur,
The sovereign blade, which Merlin gat of her,
The Ladye of the Lake, who Launcelot
Fostered from infanthood, as well you wot,
In some wierd mere in Briogn's tangled lands
Of charms and mist; where filmy fairy bands
By lazy moons of Autumn spin their fill
Of giddy morrice on the frosty hill.
By goodness of her favor this is sent;
Who craved King Arthur boon with this intent:
That soon for her a desperate combat one
With one of mightier prowess were begun;
And with the sword Excalibur right sure
Were she against that champion to endure.
The blade flame-trenchant, but more prize the sheath
Which stauncheth blood and guardeth from all death."
He said: and Accolon looked on the sword,
A mystic falchion, and, "It shall wend hard
With him thro' thee, unconquerable blade,
Whoe'er he be, who on my Queen hath laid
Stress of unworship: and the hours as slow
As palsied hours in Purgatory go
For those unmassed, till I have slain this foe!
My purse, sweet page; and now—to her who gave,
Dispatch! and this:—to all commands—her slave,
To death obedient. In love or war
Her love to make me all the warrior.
Plead her grace mercy for so long delay
From love that dies an hourly death each day
Till her white hands kissed he shall kiss her face,
By which his life breathes in continual grace."
Thus he commanded; and incontinent
The dwarf departed like a red ray sent
From rich down-flowering clouds of suffused light
Winged o'er long, purple glooms; and with the night,
Whose votaress cypress stoled the dying strife
Softly of day, and for whose perished life
Gave heaven her golden stars, in dreamy thought
Wends Accolon to hazy Chariot.
And it befell him; wandering one dawn,As was his wont, across a dew-drenched lawn,Glad with night freshness and elastic healthIn sky and earth that lavished worlds of wealthFrom heady breeze and racy smells, a knightAnd lofty lady met he; gay bedight,With following of six esquires; and theyHeld on straight wrists the jess'd gerfalcon gray,And rode a-hawking o'er the leas of GoreFrom Ontzlake's manor, where he languished; soreHurt in the lists, a spear thrust in his thigh:Who had besought—for much he feared to die—This knight and his fair lady, as they rodeTo hawk near Chariot, the Queen's abode,That they would pray her in all charityFare post to him,—for in chirurgeryOf all that land she was the greatest leach,—And her to his recovery beseech.So, Accolon saluted, they drew rein,And spake their message,—for right over fainWere they toward their sport,—that he might barePetition to that lady. But, not thereWas Arthur's sister, as they well must wot;But now a se'nnight lay at Camelot,Of Guenevere the guest; and there with herFour other queens of farther Britain were:Isoud of Ireland, she of Cornwall Queen,King Mark's wife; who right rarely then was seenAt court for jealousy of Mark, who knewHer to that lance of Lyonesse how trueSince mutual quaffing of a philter; whileHow guilty Guenevere on such could smile:She of Northgales and she of Eastland: andShe of the Out Isles Queen. A fairer bandFor sovereignty and love and lovelinessWas not in any realm to grace and bless.Then quoth the knight, "Ay? see how fortune turnsAnd varies like an April day, that burnsNow welkins blue with calm, now scowls them down,Revengeful, with a black storm's wrinkled frown.For, look, this Damas, who so long hath lainA hiding vermin, fearful of all pain,Dark in his bandit towers by the deep,Wakes from a five years' torpor and a sleep;So sends dispatch a courier to my lordWith, 'Lo! behold! to-morrow with the swordEarl Damas by his knight at point of lanceDecides the issue of inheritance,Body to body, or by champion.'Right hard to find such ere to-morrow dawn.Though sore bestead lies Ontzlake, and he could,Right fain were he to save his livelihood.Then mused Sir Accolon: "The adventure goesEv'n as my Lady fashioneth; who knowsBut what her arts develop this and make?"And thus to those: "His battle I will take,—And he be so conditioned, harried ofEstate and life,—in knighthood and for love.Conduct me thither."And, gramercied, thenMounted a void horse of that wondering train,And thence departed with two squires. And theyCame to a lone, dismantled prioryHard by a castle gray on whose square towers,Machicolated, o'er the forest's bowers,The immemorial morning bloomed and blushed.A woodland manor olden, dark embushedIn wild and woody hills. And then one woundAn echoy horn, and with the boundless soundThe drawbridge rumbled moatward clanking, andInto a paved court passed that little band....
And it befell him; wandering one dawn,
As was his wont, across a dew-drenched lawn,
Glad with night freshness and elastic health
In sky and earth that lavished worlds of wealth
From heady breeze and racy smells, a knight
And lofty lady met he; gay bedight,
With following of six esquires; and they
Held on straight wrists the jess'd gerfalcon gray,
And rode a-hawking o'er the leas of Gore
From Ontzlake's manor, where he languished; sore
Hurt in the lists, a spear thrust in his thigh:
Who had besought—for much he feared to die—
This knight and his fair lady, as they rode
To hawk near Chariot, the Queen's abode,
That they would pray her in all charity
Fare post to him,—for in chirurgery
Of all that land she was the greatest leach,—
And her to his recovery beseech.
So, Accolon saluted, they drew rein,
And spake their message,—for right over fain
Were they toward their sport,—that he might bare
Petition to that lady. But, not there
Was Arthur's sister, as they well must wot;
But now a se'nnight lay at Camelot,
Of Guenevere the guest; and there with her
Four other queens of farther Britain were:
Isoud of Ireland, she of Cornwall Queen,
King Mark's wife; who right rarely then was seen
At court for jealousy of Mark, who knew
Her to that lance of Lyonesse how true
Since mutual quaffing of a philter; while
How guilty Guenevere on such could smile:
She of Northgales and she of Eastland: and
She of the Out Isles Queen. A fairer band
For sovereignty and love and loveliness
Was not in any realm to grace and bless.
Then quoth the knight, "Ay? see how fortune turns
And varies like an April day, that burns
Now welkins blue with calm, now scowls them down,
Revengeful, with a black storm's wrinkled frown.
For, look, this Damas, who so long hath lain
A hiding vermin, fearful of all pain,
Dark in his bandit towers by the deep,
Wakes from a five years' torpor and a sleep;
So sends dispatch a courier to my lord
With, 'Lo! behold! to-morrow with the sword
Earl Damas by his knight at point of lance
Decides the issue of inheritance,
Body to body, or by champion.'
Right hard to find such ere to-morrow dawn.
Though sore bestead lies Ontzlake, and he could,
Right fain were he to save his livelihood.
Then mused Sir Accolon: "The adventure goes
Ev'n as my Lady fashioneth; who knows
But what her arts develop this and make?"
And thus to those: "His battle I will take,—
And he be so conditioned, harried of
Estate and life,—in knighthood and for love.
Conduct me thither."
And, gramercied, then
Mounted a void horse of that wondering train,
And thence departed with two squires. And they
Came to a lone, dismantled priory
Hard by a castle gray on whose square towers,
Machicolated, o'er the forest's bowers,
The immemorial morning bloomed and blushed.
A woodland manor olden, dark embushed
In wild and woody hills. And then one wound
An echoy horn, and with the boundless sound
The drawbridge rumbled moatward clanking, and
Into a paved court passed that little band....
When all the world was morning, gleam and glareOf far deluging glory, and the airSang with the wood-bird, like a humming lyreSwept bold of minstrel fingers wire on wire;Ere that fixed hour of prime came Arthur armedFor battle royally. A black steed warmedA fierce impatience 'neath him cased in mail,Huge, foreign; and accoutered head to tailIn costly sendal; rearward wine-dark red,Amber as sunlight to his fretful head.Firm, heavy armor blue had Arthur onBeneath a robe of honor, like the dawn,Satin and diapered and purflewed deepWith lordly golden purple; whence did sweepTwo hanging acorn tuftings of fine gold,And at his thigh a falchion, long and bold,Heavy and triple-edged; its scabbard, redCordovan leather; thence a baldric ledOf new cut deer-skin; this laborious wrought,And curiously with slides of gold was fraught,And buckled with a buckle white that shone,Bone of the sea-horse, tongued with jet-black bone.And, sapphire-set, a burgonet of goldBarbaric, wyvern-crested whose throat rolledA flame-sharp tongue of agate, and whose eyesGlowed venomous great rubies fierce of prize.And in his hand, a wiry lance of ash,Lattened with finest silver, like a flashOf sunlight in the morning shone a-gash.Clad was his squire most richly; he whose headCurled with close locks of yellow tinged to red:Of noble bearing; fair face; hawk eyes keen,And youthful, bearded chin. Right well beseen,Scarfed with blue satin; on his shoulder strongOne broad gold brooch chased strangely, thick and long.His legs in hose of rarest Totness clad,And parti-colored leathern shoes he hadGold-latched; and in his hand a bannered spearSpeckled and bronzen sharpened in the air.
When all the world was morning, gleam and glare
Of far deluging glory, and the air
Sang with the wood-bird, like a humming lyre
Swept bold of minstrel fingers wire on wire;
Ere that fixed hour of prime came Arthur armed
For battle royally. A black steed warmed
A fierce impatience 'neath him cased in mail,
Huge, foreign; and accoutered head to tail
In costly sendal; rearward wine-dark red,
Amber as sunlight to his fretful head.
Firm, heavy armor blue had Arthur on
Beneath a robe of honor, like the dawn,
Satin and diapered and purflewed deep
With lordly golden purple; whence did sweep
Two hanging acorn tuftings of fine gold,
And at his thigh a falchion, long and bold,
Heavy and triple-edged; its scabbard, red
Cordovan leather; thence a baldric led
Of new cut deer-skin; this laborious wrought,
And curiously with slides of gold was fraught,
And buckled with a buckle white that shone,
Bone of the sea-horse, tongued with jet-black bone.
And, sapphire-set, a burgonet of gold
Barbaric, wyvern-crested whose throat rolled
A flame-sharp tongue of agate, and whose eyes
Glowed venomous great rubies fierce of prize.
And in his hand, a wiry lance of ash,
Lattened with finest silver, like a flash
Of sunlight in the morning shone a-gash.
Clad was his squire most richly; he whose head
Curled with close locks of yellow tinged to red:
Of noble bearing; fair face; hawk eyes keen,
And youthful, bearded chin. Right well beseen,
Scarfed with blue satin; on his shoulder strong
One broad gold brooch chased strangely, thick and long.
His legs in hose of rarest Totness clad,
And parti-colored leathern shoes he had
Gold-latched; and in his hand a bannered spear
Speckled and bronzen sharpened in the air.
So with his following, while lay like scarsThe blue mist thin along the woodland bars,Thro' dew and fog, thro' shadow and thro' rayJoustward Earl Damas led the forest way.Then to King Arthur when arrived were theseTo where the lists shone silken thro' the trees,Bannered and draped, a wimpled damsel came,Secret, upon a palfrey all aflameWith sweat and heat of hurry, and, "From her,Your sister Morgane, your Excalibur,With tender greeting: For ye well have needIn this adventure of him. So, God speed!"And so departed suddenly: nor knewThe king but this his weapon tried and true.But brittle this and fashioned like thereof,And false of baser metal, in unloveAnd treason to his life, of her of kinHalf sister, Morgane—an unnatural sin.
So with his following, while lay like scars
The blue mist thin along the woodland bars,
Thro' dew and fog, thro' shadow and thro' ray
Joustward Earl Damas led the forest way.
Then to King Arthur when arrived were these
To where the lists shone silken thro' the trees,
Bannered and draped, a wimpled damsel came,
Secret, upon a palfrey all aflame
With sweat and heat of hurry, and, "From her,
Your sister Morgane, your Excalibur,
With tender greeting: For ye well have need
In this adventure of him. So, God speed!"
And so departed suddenly: nor knew
The king but this his weapon tried and true.
But brittle this and fashioned like thereof,
And false of baser metal, in unlove
And treason to his life, of her of kin
Half sister, Morgane—an unnatural sin.
Then heralded into the lists he rode.Opposed flashed Accolon, who light bestrode,Exultant, proud in talisman of that sword,A dun horse lofty as a haughty lord,Pure white about each hollow, pasterned hoof.Equipped shone knight and steed in arms of proof,Dappled with yellow variegated plateOf Spanish laton. And of sovereign stateHis surcoat robe of honor white and blackOf satin, red-silk needled front and backThen blackly bordered. And above his robeThat two-edged sword,—a throbbing golden globeOf vicious jewels,—thrust its burning hilt,Its broad belt, tawny and with gold-work gilt,Clasped with the eyelid of a black sea-horseWhose tongue was rosy gold. And stern as ForceHis visored helmet burned like fire, of richAnd bronzen laton hammered; and on whichAn hundred crystals glittered, thick as onA silver web bright-studding dews of dawn.The casque's tail crest a taloned griffin ramped,In whose horned brow one virtuous jewel stamped.An ashen spear round-shafted, overlaidWith fine blue silver, whereon colors played,Firm in his iron gauntlet lithely swayed.
Then heralded into the lists he rode.
Opposed flashed Accolon, who light bestrode,
Exultant, proud in talisman of that sword,
A dun horse lofty as a haughty lord,
Pure white about each hollow, pasterned hoof.
Equipped shone knight and steed in arms of proof,
Dappled with yellow variegated plate
Of Spanish laton. And of sovereign state
His surcoat robe of honor white and black
Of satin, red-silk needled front and back
Then blackly bordered. And above his robe
That two-edged sword,—a throbbing golden globe
Of vicious jewels,—thrust its burning hilt,
Its broad belt, tawny and with gold-work gilt,
Clasped with the eyelid of a black sea-horse
Whose tongue was rosy gold. And stern as Force
His visored helmet burned like fire, of rich
And bronzen laton hammered; and on which
An hundred crystals glittered, thick as on
A silver web bright-studding dews of dawn.
The casque's tail crest a taloned griffin ramped,
In whose horned brow one virtuous jewel stamped.
An ashen spear round-shafted, overlaid
With fine blue silver, whereon colors played,
Firm in his iron gauntlet lithely swayed.
Intense on either side an instant stoodGlittering as serpents which, with Spring renewed,In glassy scales meet on some greening way,Angry advance, quick tongues at poisonous play.Then clanged a herald's clarion and sharp heels,Harsh-spurred, each champion's springing courser feelsTouch to red onset; the aventured spearsHurled like two sun-bursts of a storm when clearsLaborious thunders; and in middle courseShrieked shrill the unpierced shields; mailed horse from horseLashed madly pawing—and a hoarse roar rangFrom buckram lists, till the wild echoes sangOf leagues on leagues of forest and of cliff.Rigid the proof-shelled warriors passed and stiffWhither their squires fresher spears upheld;Nor stayed to breathe; but scarcely firmly selledLaunched deadly forward. Shield to savage shieldOpposing; crest to crest, whose fronts did wieldA towering war's unmercifulest scath;Rocking undaunted, glared wan withering wrathFrom balls of jeweled eyes, and raging stoodSlim, slippery bodies, in the sun like blood.The lance of Accolon, as on a rockLong storm-launched foam breaks baffled, with the shock,On Arthur's sounding shield burst splintered force;But him resistless Arthur's,—high from horseSell-lifted,—ruinous bare crashing onA long sword's length; unsaddled AccolonFor one stunned moment lay. Then rising, drewThe great sword at his hip, that shone like dewFresh flashed in morn. "Descend;" he stiffly said,"To proof of better weapons head for head!Enough of spears, to swords!" and so the knightAddressed him to the King. Dismounting light,Arthur his moon-bright brand unsheathed, and highEach covering shield gleamed slanting to the sky,Relentless, strong, and stubborn; underneathTheir wary shelters foined the glittering deathOf stolid steel thrust livid arm to arm:As cloud to cloud growls up a soaring stormAbove the bleak wood and lithe lightnings workBrave blades wild warring, in the black that lurk,Thus fenced and thrust—one tortoise shield descends,Leaps a fierce sword shrill,—like a flame which sendsA long fang heavenward,—for a crushing stroke;Swings hard and trenchant, and, resounding heard,Sings surly helmward full; defiance rearedSoars to a brother blow to shriek againBlade on brave blade. And o'er the battered plain,Forward and backward, blade on baleful blade,Teeth clenched as visors where the fierce eyes madeA cavernous, smouldering fury, shield at shield,Unflinchingly remained and scorned to yield.
Intense on either side an instant stood
Glittering as serpents which, with Spring renewed,
In glassy scales meet on some greening way,
Angry advance, quick tongues at poisonous play.
Then clanged a herald's clarion and sharp heels,
Harsh-spurred, each champion's springing courser feels
Touch to red onset; the aventured spears
Hurled like two sun-bursts of a storm when clears
Laborious thunders; and in middle course
Shrieked shrill the unpierced shields; mailed horse from horse
Lashed madly pawing—and a hoarse roar rang
From buckram lists, till the wild echoes sang
Of leagues on leagues of forest and of cliff.
Rigid the proof-shelled warriors passed and stiff
Whither their squires fresher spears upheld;
Nor stayed to breathe; but scarcely firmly selled
Launched deadly forward. Shield to savage shield
Opposing; crest to crest, whose fronts did wield
A towering war's unmercifulest scath;
Rocking undaunted, glared wan withering wrath
From balls of jeweled eyes, and raging stood
Slim, slippery bodies, in the sun like blood.
The lance of Accolon, as on a rock
Long storm-launched foam breaks baffled, with the shock,
On Arthur's sounding shield burst splintered force;
But him resistless Arthur's,—high from horse
Sell-lifted,—ruinous bare crashing on
A long sword's length; unsaddled Accolon
For one stunned moment lay. Then rising, drew
The great sword at his hip, that shone like dew
Fresh flashed in morn. "Descend;" he stiffly said,
"To proof of better weapons head for head!
Enough of spears, to swords!" and so the knight
Addressed him to the King. Dismounting light,
Arthur his moon-bright brand unsheathed, and high
Each covering shield gleamed slanting to the sky,
Relentless, strong, and stubborn; underneath
Their wary shelters foined the glittering death
Of stolid steel thrust livid arm to arm:
As cloud to cloud growls up a soaring storm
Above the bleak wood and lithe lightnings work
Brave blades wild warring, in the black that lurk,
Thus fenced and thrust—one tortoise shield descends,
Leaps a fierce sword shrill,—like a flame which sends
A long fang heavenward,—for a crushing stroke;
Swings hard and trenchant, and, resounding heard,
Sings surly helmward full; defiance reared
Soars to a brother blow to shriek again
Blade on brave blade. And o'er the battered plain,
Forward and backward, blade on baleful blade,
Teeth clenched as visors where the fierce eyes made
A cavernous, smouldering fury, shield at shield,
Unflinchingly remained and scorned to yield.
So Arthur drew aside to rest uponHis falchion for a pause; but AccolonAs yet, thro' virtue of that magic sheathFresh and almighty, being no nearer deathThro' loss of blood than when the trial begun,Chafed with delay. But Arthur with the sun,Its thirsty heat, the loss from wounds of blood,Leaned fainting weary and so resting stood.Cried Accolon, "Here is no time for rest!Defend thee!" and straight on the monarch pressed;"Defend or yield thee as one recreant!"Full on his helm a hewing blow did plant,Which beat a flying fire from the steel;Smote, like one drunk with wine, the King did reel,Breath, brain bewildered. Then, infuriate,Nerve-stung with vigor by that blow, in hateGnarled all his strength into one stroke of might,And in both fists the huge blade knotted tight,Swung red, terrific to a sundering stroke.—As some bright wind that hurls th' uprooted oak,—Boomed full the beaten burgonet he wore:Hacked thro' and thro' the crest, and cleanly shoreThe golden boasting of its griffin fierceWith hollow clamor down astounded ears:No further thence—but, shattered to the grass,That brittle blade, crushed as if made of glass,Into hot pieces like a broken rayBurst sunward and in feverish fragments lay.Then groaned the King unarmed; and so he knewThis no Excalibur; that tried and trueMost perfect tempered, runed and mystical.Sobbed, "Oh, hell-false! betray me?"— Then withalHim seemed this foe, who fought with so much stress,So long untiring, and with no distressOf wounds or heat, through treachery bare his brand;And then he knew it by its hilt that handClutched to an avenging stroke. For AccolonIn madness urged the belted battle onHis King defenseless; who, the hilted crossOf that false weapon grasped, beneath the bossOf his deep-dented shield crouched; and aroundCrawled the unequal conflict o'er the ground,Sharded with shattered spears and off-hewn bitsOf shivered steel and gold that burnt in fits.So hunted, yet defiant, coweringBeneath his bossy shield's defense, the KingPersisted stoutly. And, devising stillHow to secure his sword and by what skill,Him so it fortuned when most desperate:In that hot chase they came where shattered lateLay tossed the truncheon of a bursten lance,Which deftly seized, to Accolon's advanceHe wielded valorous. Against the fistSmote where the gauntlet husked the nervous wrist,Which strained the weapon to a wrathful blow;Palsied, the tightened sinews of his foeLoosened from effort, and, the falchion seized,Easy was yielded. Then the wroth King squeezed,—Hurling the moon-disk of his shield afar,—Him in both knotted arms of wiry war,Rocked sidewise twice or thrice,—as one hath seenSome stern storm take an ash tree, roaring green,Nodding its sappy bulk of trunk and boughsTo dizziness, from tough, coiled roots carouseIts long height thundering;—so King Arthur shookSir Accolon and headlong flung; then took,Tearing away, that scabbard from his side,Tossed thro' the breathless lists, that far and wideGulped in the battle voiceless. Then right wrothSecured Excalibur, and grasped of bothWild hands swung glittering and brought bitter downOn rising Accolon; steel, bone and brawnHewed thro' that blow; unsettled every sense:Bathed in a world of blood his limbs grew tenseAnd writhen then ungathered limp with death.Bent to him Arthur, from the brow beneath,Unlaced the helm and doffed it and so asked,When the fair forehead's hair curled dark uncasqued,"Say! ere I slay thee, whence and what thou art?What King, what court be thine? and from what part,Speak! or thou diest!—Yet, that brow, methinksI have beheld it—where? say, ere death drinksThe soul-light from life's cups, thine eyes! thou art—What art thou, speak!"He answered slow and shortWith tortured breathing: "I?—one, AccolonOf Gaul, a knight of Arthur's court—at dawn—God wot what now I am for love so slain!"Then seemed the victor spasmed with keen pain,Covered with mailéd hands his visored face;"Thou Accolon? art Accolon?" a spaceExclaimed and conned him: then asked softly, "Say,Whence gatest thou this sword, or in what wayThou hadst it, speak?" But wandering that knightHeard dully, senses clodded thick with night;Then rallying earthward: "Woe, woe worth the sword!—From love of love who lives, for love yet lord!—Morgane!—thy love for love in love hadst madeMe strong o'er kings an hundred! to have swayedBritain! had this not risen like a fate,Spawned up, a Hell's miscarriage sired of Hate!—A king? thou curse! a gold and blood crowned king,With Arthur's sister queen?—'Twas she who schemed.And there at Chariot we loved and dreamedGone some twelve months. There so we had devolvedHow Arthur's death were compassed and resolvedEach liberal morning, like an almoner,Prodigal of silver to the begging air;Each turbulent eve that in heaven's turquoise rolledConvulsive fiery glories deep in gold;Each night—hilarious heavens vast of night!—Boisterous with quivering stars buoyed bubble-lightIn flexuous labyrinths o' the intricate sphere.We dreamed and spake Ambition at our ear—Nay! a crowned curse and crimeful clad she came,To me, that woman, brighter than a flame;And laughed on me with pouting lips up-pursedFor kisses which I gave for love: How cursedWas I thereafter! For, lie fleshed in truth,She shrivels to a hag! Behind that youthUgly, misshapen; Lust not Love, whereinGerms pregnant seed of Hell for hate and sin.—Iseek for such the proudest height of seat,King Arthur's kingdom, and bold fame complete?—Harlot!—sweet spouse of Urience King of Gore!—Sweet harlot!—here's that death determined o'er!And now thou hast thy dream, and dreaming grieveThat death so ruins it?—Thy mouth to shrieve!—Nay, nay, I love thee! witness bare this field!I love thee!—heart, dost love her and yet yield?—Enow! enow! so hale me hence to die!"
So Arthur drew aside to rest upon
His falchion for a pause; but Accolon
As yet, thro' virtue of that magic sheath
Fresh and almighty, being no nearer death
Thro' loss of blood than when the trial begun,
Chafed with delay. But Arthur with the sun,
Its thirsty heat, the loss from wounds of blood,
Leaned fainting weary and so resting stood.
Cried Accolon, "Here is no time for rest!
Defend thee!" and straight on the monarch pressed;
"Defend or yield thee as one recreant!"
Full on his helm a hewing blow did plant,
Which beat a flying fire from the steel;
Smote, like one drunk with wine, the King did reel,
Breath, brain bewildered. Then, infuriate,
Nerve-stung with vigor by that blow, in hate
Gnarled all his strength into one stroke of might,
And in both fists the huge blade knotted tight,
Swung red, terrific to a sundering stroke.—
As some bright wind that hurls th' uprooted oak,—
Boomed full the beaten burgonet he wore:
Hacked thro' and thro' the crest, and cleanly shore
The golden boasting of its griffin fierce
With hollow clamor down astounded ears:
No further thence—but, shattered to the grass,
That brittle blade, crushed as if made of glass,
Into hot pieces like a broken ray
Burst sunward and in feverish fragments lay.
Then groaned the King unarmed; and so he knew
This no Excalibur; that tried and true
Most perfect tempered, runed and mystical.
Sobbed, "Oh, hell-false! betray me?"— Then withal
Him seemed this foe, who fought with so much stress,
So long untiring, and with no distress
Of wounds or heat, through treachery bare his brand;
And then he knew it by its hilt that hand
Clutched to an avenging stroke. For Accolon
In madness urged the belted battle on
His King defenseless; who, the hilted cross
Of that false weapon grasped, beneath the boss
Of his deep-dented shield crouched; and around
Crawled the unequal conflict o'er the ground,
Sharded with shattered spears and off-hewn bits
Of shivered steel and gold that burnt in fits.
So hunted, yet defiant, cowering
Beneath his bossy shield's defense, the King
Persisted stoutly. And, devising still
How to secure his sword and by what skill,
Him so it fortuned when most desperate:
In that hot chase they came where shattered late
Lay tossed the truncheon of a bursten lance,
Which deftly seized, to Accolon's advance
He wielded valorous. Against the fist
Smote where the gauntlet husked the nervous wrist,
Which strained the weapon to a wrathful blow;
Palsied, the tightened sinews of his foe
Loosened from effort, and, the falchion seized,
Easy was yielded. Then the wroth King squeezed,
—Hurling the moon-disk of his shield afar,—
Him in both knotted arms of wiry war,
Rocked sidewise twice or thrice,—as one hath seen
Some stern storm take an ash tree, roaring green,
Nodding its sappy bulk of trunk and boughs
To dizziness, from tough, coiled roots carouse
Its long height thundering;—so King Arthur shook
Sir Accolon and headlong flung; then took,
Tearing away, that scabbard from his side,
Tossed thro' the breathless lists, that far and wide
Gulped in the battle voiceless. Then right wroth
Secured Excalibur, and grasped of both
Wild hands swung glittering and brought bitter down
On rising Accolon; steel, bone and brawn
Hewed thro' that blow; unsettled every sense:
Bathed in a world of blood his limbs grew tense
And writhen then ungathered limp with death.
Bent to him Arthur, from the brow beneath,
Unlaced the helm and doffed it and so asked,
When the fair forehead's hair curled dark uncasqued,
"Say! ere I slay thee, whence and what thou art?
What King, what court be thine? and from what part,
Speak! or thou diest!—Yet, that brow, methinks
I have beheld it—where? say, ere death drinks
The soul-light from life's cups, thine eyes! thou art—
What art thou, speak!"
He answered slow and short
With tortured breathing: "I?—one, Accolon
Of Gaul, a knight of Arthur's court—at dawn—
God wot what now I am for love so slain!"
Then seemed the victor spasmed with keen pain,
Covered with mailéd hands his visored face;
"Thou Accolon? art Accolon?" a space
Exclaimed and conned him: then asked softly, "Say,
Whence gatest thou this sword, or in what way
Thou hadst it, speak?" But wandering that knight
Heard dully, senses clodded thick with night;
Then rallying earthward: "Woe, woe worth the sword!
—From love of love who lives, for love yet lord!—
Morgane!—thy love for love in love hadst made
Me strong o'er kings an hundred! to have swayed
Britain! had this not risen like a fate,
Spawned up, a Hell's miscarriage sired of Hate!—
A king? thou curse! a gold and blood crowned king,
With Arthur's sister queen?—'Twas she who schemed.
And there at Chariot we loved and dreamed
Gone some twelve months. There so we had devolved
How Arthur's death were compassed and resolved
Each liberal morning, like an almoner,
Prodigal of silver to the begging air;
Each turbulent eve that in heaven's turquoise rolled
Convulsive fiery glories deep in gold;
Each night—hilarious heavens vast of night!—
Boisterous with quivering stars buoyed bubble-light
In flexuous labyrinths o' the intricate sphere.
We dreamed and spake Ambition at our ear—
Nay! a crowned curse and crimeful clad she came,
To me, that woman, brighter than a flame;
And laughed on me with pouting lips up-pursed
For kisses which I gave for love: How cursed
Was I thereafter! For, lie fleshed in truth,
She shrivels to a hag! Behind that youth
Ugly, misshapen; Lust not Love, wherein
Germs pregnant seed of Hell for hate and sin.—
Iseek for such the proudest height of seat,
King Arthur's kingdom, and bold fame complete?—
Harlot!—sweet spouse of Urience King of Gore!—
Sweet harlot!—here's that death determined o'er!
And now thou hast thy dream, and dreaming grieve
That death so ruins it?—Thy mouth to shrieve!—
Nay, nay, I love thee! witness bare this field!
I love thee!—heart, dost love her and yet yield?—
Enow! enow! so hale me hence to die!"
Then anger in the good King's gloomy eyeBurnt, instant-embered, as one oft may seeA star leak out of heaven and cease to be.Slow from his visage he his visor raised,And on the dying one mute moment gazed,Then low bespake him grimly: "Accolon,I am that King." He with an awful groan,Blade-battered as he was, beheld and knew;Strained to his tottering knees and haggard drewUp full his armored tallness, hoarsely cried,"The King!" and at his mailed feet clashed and died.Then rose a world of anxious faces pressedAbout King Arthur, who, though wound-distressed,Bespake that multitude: "Whiles breath and powerRemain, judge we these brethren: This harsh hourHath yielded Damas all this rich estate;—So it is his—allotted his of FateThro' might of arms; so let it be to him.For, stood our oath on knighthood not so slimBut that it hath this strong conclusion:This much by us as errant knight is done:Now our decree as King of Britain, hear:We do adjudge this Damas banned fore'er,Outlawed and exiled from all shores and islesOf farthest Britain in its many miles.One month be his—no more! then will we comeEven with an iron host to seal his doom;If he be not departed over seas,Hang naked from his battlements to pleaseOf carrion ravens and wild hawks the craws.Thus much for Damas. But our pleasure drawsToward sir Ontzlake, whom it likes the KingTo take into his knightly followingOf that Round Table royal.—Stand our word!—But I am overweary; take my sword;—Unharness me; for, battle worn, I tireWith bruises' achings and wounds mad with fire;And monasteryward would I right fain,Even Glastonbury and with me the slain."So bare they then the wounded King away,The dead behind. So, closed the Autumn day.* * * * * * *But when within that abbey he waxed strong,The King remembering him of all the wrongThat Damas had inflicted on the land,Commanded Lionell with a staunch bandThis weed's out-stamping if still rooted there.He riding thither to that robber lair,Led Arthur's hopefulest helms, when thorn on thornReddened an hundred spears one winter morn;Built up, a bulk of bastioned rock on rock,Vast battlements, that loomed above the shockOf freshening foam that climbed with haling hands,Lone cloudy-clustered turrets in loud landsSet desolate,—mournful o'er wide, frozen flats,—Found hollow towers the haunt of owls and bats.
Then anger in the good King's gloomy eye
Burnt, instant-embered, as one oft may see
A star leak out of heaven and cease to be.
Slow from his visage he his visor raised,
And on the dying one mute moment gazed,
Then low bespake him grimly: "Accolon,
I am that King." He with an awful groan,
Blade-battered as he was, beheld and knew;
Strained to his tottering knees and haggard drew
Up full his armored tallness, hoarsely cried,
"The King!" and at his mailed feet clashed and died.
Then rose a world of anxious faces pressed
About King Arthur, who, though wound-distressed,
Bespake that multitude: "Whiles breath and power
Remain, judge we these brethren: This harsh hour
Hath yielded Damas all this rich estate;—
So it is his—allotted his of Fate
Thro' might of arms; so let it be to him.
For, stood our oath on knighthood not so slim
But that it hath this strong conclusion:
This much by us as errant knight is done:
Now our decree as King of Britain, hear:
We do adjudge this Damas banned fore'er,
Outlawed and exiled from all shores and isles
Of farthest Britain in its many miles.
One month be his—no more! then will we come
Even with an iron host to seal his doom;
If he be not departed over seas,
Hang naked from his battlements to please
Of carrion ravens and wild hawks the craws.
Thus much for Damas. But our pleasure draws
Toward sir Ontzlake, whom it likes the King
To take into his knightly following
Of that Round Table royal.—Stand our word!—
But I am overweary; take my sword;—
Unharness me; for, battle worn, I tire
With bruises' achings and wounds mad with fire;
And monasteryward would I right fain,
Even Glastonbury and with me the slain."
So bare they then the wounded King away,
The dead behind. So, closed the Autumn day.
* * * * * * *
But when within that abbey he waxed strong,
The King remembering him of all the wrong
That Damas had inflicted on the land,
Commanded Lionell with a staunch band
This weed's out-stamping if still rooted there.
He riding thither to that robber lair,
Led Arthur's hopefulest helms, when thorn on thorn
Reddened an hundred spears one winter morn;
Built up, a bulk of bastioned rock on rock,
Vast battlements, that loomed above the shock
Of freshening foam that climbed with haling hands,
Lone cloudy-clustered turrets in loud lands
Set desolate,—mournful o'er wide, frozen flats,—
Found hollow towers the haunt of owls and bats.
HATE, born of Wrath and mother red of Crime,In Hell was whelped ere the hot hands of time,Artificer of God, had coined one worldFrom formless forms of void and 'round it furledIts lordly raiment of the day and night,And germed its womb for seasons throed with might:And Hell sent Hate to man to hate or use,To serve itself by serving and amuse....For her half brother Morgane had conceivedA morbid hatred; in that much she grieved,Envious and jealous, for that high renownAnd majesty the King for his fast crownThro' worship had acquired. And once he said,"The closest kin to state are those to dread:No honor such to crush: envenomingAll those kind tongues of blood that try to singPetition to the soul, while conscience quakesHuddled, but stern to hearts whose cold pride takes."And well she knew that Arthur: mightierThan Accolon, without ExcaliburWere as a stingless hornet in the joustWith all his foreign weapons. So her trustSmiled certain of conclusion; eloquentGave lofty heart bold hope that at large eyesPiled up imperial dreams of power and prize.And in her carven chamber, oaken dark,Traceried and arrased, o'er the barren parkThat dripped with Autumn,—for November laySwathed frostily in fog on every spray,—Thought at her tri-arched casement lone, one night,Ere yet came knowledge of that test of might.Her lord in slumber and the castle dullWith silence or with sad wind-music full."And he removed?—fond fool!he is removed!Death-dull from feet to hair and graveward shovedFrom royalty to that degraded stateBut purpler pomp! But, see! regenerateAnother monarch rises—Accolon!—Love! Love! with state more ermined; balmy sonOf gods not men, and nobler hence to rule.Sweet Love almighty, terrible to schoolHarsh hearts to gentleness!—Then all this realm'sIron-huskéd flower of war, which overwhelmsWith rust and havoc, shall explode and bloomAn asphodel of peace with joy's perfume.And then, sweet Launcelots and sweet Tristrams proud,Sweet Gueneveres, sweet Isouds, now allowedNo pleasures but what wary, stolen hoursIn golden places have their flaming flowers,Shall have curled feasts of passion evermore.Poor out-thrust Love, now shivering at the door,No longer, sweet neglected, thou thrust off,Insulted and derided: nor the scoffOf bully Power, whose heart of insult flingsOff for the roar of arms the appeal that clingsAnd lifts a tearful, prayerful pitiful faceUp from his brutal feet: this shrine where graceLays woman's life for every sacrifice—To him so little, yet of what pure price,Her all, being all her all for love!—her soulLife, honor, earth and firmamental wholeOf God's glad universe; stars, moon and sun;Creation, death; life ended, life begun.And if by fleshly love all Heaven's debarred,Its sinuous revolving spheres instarred,Then Hell were Heaven with love to those who knewLove which God's Heaven encouraged—love that drewHips, head and hair in fiends' devouring clawsDown, down its pit's hurled sucking, as down draws,—Yet lip to narrow lip with whom we love,—A whirlwind some weak, crippled, fallen dove."Then this lank Urience? He who is lord.—Where is thy worry? for, hath he no sword?No dangerous dagger I, hid softly hereSharp as an adder's fang? or for that earNo instant poison which insinuates,Tightens quick pulses, while one breathing waits,With ice and death? For often men who sleepOn eider-down wake not, but closely keepSuch secrets in their graves to rot and rotTo dust and maggots;—of these—which his lot?"Thus she conspired with her that rainy nightLone in her chamber; when no haggard, white,Wan, watery moon dreamed on the streaming pane,But on the leads beat an incessant rain,And sighed and moaned a weary wind alongThe turrets and torn poplars stirred to song.So grew her face severe as skies that takeDark forces of full storm, sound-shod, that shakeWith murmurous feet black hills, and stab with fireA pine some moaning forest mourns as sire.So touched her countenance that dark intent;And to still eyes stern thoughts a passion sent,As midnight waters luminous glass deepSuggestive worlds of austere stars in sleep,Vague ghostly gray locked in their hollow gloom.Then as if some vast wind had swept the room,Silent, intense, had raised her from her seat,Of dim, great arms had made her a retreat,Secret as love to move in, like some ghost,Noiseless as death and subtle as sharp frost,Poised like a light and borne as carefully,Trod she the gusty hall where shadowyThe stirring hangings rolled a Pagan war.And there the mail of Urience shone. A star,Glimmering above, a dying cresset droppedFrom the stone vault and flared. And here she stoppedAnd took the sword bright, burnished by his page,And ruddy as a flame with restless rage.Grasping this death unto the chamber whereSlept innocent her spouse she moved—an airTwined in soft, glossy sendal; or a fitOf faery song a wicked charm in it,A spell that sings seductive on to death.Then paused she at one chamber; for a breathListened: and here her son Sir Ewain slept,He who of ravens a black army kept,In war than fiercest men more terrible,That tore forth eyes of kings who blinded fell.Sure that he slept, to Urience stole and stoodDim by his couch. About her heart hot bloodCaught strangling, then throbbed thudding fever upTo her broad eyes, like wine whirled in a cup.Then came rare Recollection, with a mouthSweet as the honeyed sunbeams of the SouthTrickling thro' perplexed ripples of low leaves;To whose faint form a veil of starshine cleavesIntricate gauze from memoried eyes to feet;—Feet sandaled with crushed, sifted snows and fleetTo come and go and airy anxiously.She, trembling to her, like a flower a beeNests in and makes an audible mouth of muskDripping a downy language in the dusk,Laid lips to ears and luted memories ofNow hateful Urience:—Her maiden love,That willing went from Caerlleon to GoreOne dazzling day of Autumn. How a boar,Wild as the wonder of the blazing wood,Raged at her from a cavernous solitude,Which, crimson-creepered, yawned the bristling curseMurderous upon her; how her steed waxed worseAnd, snorting terror, fled unmanageable,Pursued with fear, and flung her from the selle,Soft slipping on a bank of springy mossThat couched her swooning. In an utter lossOf mind and limbs she only knew twas thus—As one who pants beneath an incubus:—The boar thrust toward her a tusked snout and fangedOf hideous bristles, and the whole wood clangedAnd buzzed and boomed a thousand sounds and lightsLawless about her brain, like leaves fierce nightsOf hurricane harvest shouting: then she knewA fury thunder twixt it—and fleet flewRich-rooted moss and sandy loam that heldDark-buried shadows of the wild, and swelledContinual echoes with the thud of strife,And breath of man and brute that warred for life;And all the air, made mad with foam and forms,Spun froth and wrestled twixt her hair and arms,While trampled caked the stricken leaves or shredHummed whirling, and snapped brittle branches dead.And when she rose and leaned her throbbing head,Which burst its uncoifed rays of raven hairDown swelling shoulders pure and faultless fair,On one milk, marvelous arm of fluid grace,Beheld the brute thing throttled and the faceOf angry Urience over, browed like Might,One red, swoln arm, that pinned the hairy fright,Strong as a god's, iron at the gullet's brawn;Dug in his midriff, the close knees updrawnWedged deep the glutton sides that quaked and stroveA shaggy bulk, whose sharp hoofs horny drove.Thus man and brute burned bent; when Urience slippedOne arm, the horror's tearing tusks had rippedAnd ribboned redly, to the dagger's hilt,Which at his hip hung long a haft gold-gilt;Its rapid splinter drew; beamed twice and thriceHigh in the sun its ghastliness of icePlunged—and the great boar, stretched in sullen death,Weakened thro' wild veins, groaned laborious breath.And how he brought her water from a wellThat rustled freshness near them, as it fellFrom its full-mantled urn, in his deep casque,And prayed her quaff; then bathed her brow, a taskThat had accompaning tears of joy and vowsOf love, sweet intercourse of eyes and brows,And many clinging kisses eloquent.And how, when dressed his arm, behind him bentShe clasped him on the same steed and they wentOn thro' the gold wood toward the golden West,Till on one low hill's forest-covered crestUp in the gold his castle's battlements pressed.And then she felt she'd loved him till had comeFame of the love of Isoud, whom from homeBrought knightly Tristram o'er the Irish foam,And Guenevere's for Launcelot of the Lake.And then how passion from these seemed to wakeLonging for some great gallant who would slake—And such found Accolon.And then she thoughtHow far she'd fallen and how darkly fraughtWith consequence was this. Then what distressWere hers and his—her lover's; and successHow doubly difficult if Arthur slain,King Urience lived to assert his right to reign.So paused she pondering on the blade; her lipsBreathless and close as close cold finger tipsHugged the huge weapon's hilt. And so she sighed,"Nay! long, too long hast lived who shouldst have diedEven in the womb abortive! who these yearsHast leashed sweet life to care with stinging tears,A knot thus harshly severed!—As thou artInto the elements naked!"O'er his heartThe long sword hesitated, lean as crime,Descended redly once. And like a rhymeOf nice words fairly fitted forming on,—A sudden ceasing and the harmony gone,So ran to death the life of Urience,A strong song incomplete of broken sense.There glowered the crimeful Queen. The glistening swordUnfleshed, flung by her wronged and murdered lord;And the dark blood spread broader thro' the sheetTo drip a horror at impassive feetAnd blur the polished oak. But lofty sheStood proud, relentless; in her ecstacyA lovely devil; a crowned lust that criedOn Accolon; that harlot which defiedHeaven with a voice of pulses clamorous asSteep storm that down a cavernous mountain passBlasphemes an hundred echoes; with like powerThe inner harlot called its paramour:Him whom King Arthur had commanded, whenBorne from the lists, be granted her againAs his blithe gift and welcome from that joust,For treacherous love and her adulterous lust.And while she stood revolving how her deed'sConcealment were secured,—a grind of steeds,Arms, jingling stirrups, voices loud that cursedFierce in the northern court. To her athirstFor him her lover, war and power it spoke,Him victor and so King; and then awokeA yearning to behold, to quit the dead.So a wild specter down wide stairs she fled,Burst on a glare of links and glittering mail,That shrunk her eyes and made her senses quail.To her a bulk of iron, bearded fierce,Down from a steaming steed into her ears,"This from the King, a boon!" laughed harsh and hoarse;Two henchmen beckoned, who pitched sheer with force,Loud clanging at her feet, hacked, hewn and red,Crusted with blood a knight in armor—dead;Even Accolon, tossed with the mocking scoff"This from the King!"—phantoms in fog rode off.And what remains? From Camelot to GoreThat right she weeping fled; then to the shore,—As that romancer tells,—Avilion,Where she hath Majesty gold-crowned yet wan;In darkest cypress a frail pitious faceQueenly and lovely; 'round sad eyes the traceOf immemorial tears as for some crime:They future fixed, expectant of the timeWhen the forgiving Arthur cometh andShall have to rule all that lost golden landThat drifts vague amber in forgotten seasOf surgeless turquoise dim with mysteries.And so was seen Morgana nevermore,Save once when from the Cornwall coast she boreThe wounded Arthur from that last fought fightOf Camlan in a black barge into night.But oft some see her with a palfried bandOf serge-stoled maidens thro' the drowsy landOf Autumn glimmer; when are sharply strewnThe red leaves, while broad in the east a moonSwings full of frost a lustrous globe of gleams,Faint on the mooning hills as shapes in dreams.
HATE, born of Wrath and mother red of Crime,In Hell was whelped ere the hot hands of time,Artificer of God, had coined one worldFrom formless forms of void and 'round it furledIts lordly raiment of the day and night,And germed its womb for seasons throed with might:And Hell sent Hate to man to hate or use,To serve itself by serving and amuse....
HATE, born of Wrath and mother red of Crime,
In Hell was whelped ere the hot hands of time,
Artificer of God, had coined one world
From formless forms of void and 'round it furled
Its lordly raiment of the day and night,
And germed its womb for seasons throed with might:
And Hell sent Hate to man to hate or use,
To serve itself by serving and amuse....
For her half brother Morgane had conceivedA morbid hatred; in that much she grieved,Envious and jealous, for that high renownAnd majesty the King for his fast crownThro' worship had acquired. And once he said,"The closest kin to state are those to dread:No honor such to crush: envenomingAll those kind tongues of blood that try to singPetition to the soul, while conscience quakesHuddled, but stern to hearts whose cold pride takes."And well she knew that Arthur: mightierThan Accolon, without ExcaliburWere as a stingless hornet in the joustWith all his foreign weapons. So her trustSmiled certain of conclusion; eloquentGave lofty heart bold hope that at large eyesPiled up imperial dreams of power and prize.And in her carven chamber, oaken dark,Traceried and arrased, o'er the barren parkThat dripped with Autumn,—for November laySwathed frostily in fog on every spray,—Thought at her tri-arched casement lone, one night,Ere yet came knowledge of that test of might.Her lord in slumber and the castle dullWith silence or with sad wind-music full."And he removed?—fond fool!he is removed!Death-dull from feet to hair and graveward shovedFrom royalty to that degraded stateBut purpler pomp! But, see! regenerateAnother monarch rises—Accolon!—Love! Love! with state more ermined; balmy sonOf gods not men, and nobler hence to rule.Sweet Love almighty, terrible to schoolHarsh hearts to gentleness!—Then all this realm'sIron-huskéd flower of war, which overwhelmsWith rust and havoc, shall explode and bloomAn asphodel of peace with joy's perfume.And then, sweet Launcelots and sweet Tristrams proud,Sweet Gueneveres, sweet Isouds, now allowedNo pleasures but what wary, stolen hoursIn golden places have their flaming flowers,Shall have curled feasts of passion evermore.Poor out-thrust Love, now shivering at the door,No longer, sweet neglected, thou thrust off,Insulted and derided: nor the scoffOf bully Power, whose heart of insult flingsOff for the roar of arms the appeal that clingsAnd lifts a tearful, prayerful pitiful faceUp from his brutal feet: this shrine where graceLays woman's life for every sacrifice—To him so little, yet of what pure price,Her all, being all her all for love!—her soulLife, honor, earth and firmamental wholeOf God's glad universe; stars, moon and sun;Creation, death; life ended, life begun.And if by fleshly love all Heaven's debarred,Its sinuous revolving spheres instarred,Then Hell were Heaven with love to those who knewLove which God's Heaven encouraged—love that drewHips, head and hair in fiends' devouring clawsDown, down its pit's hurled sucking, as down draws,—Yet lip to narrow lip with whom we love,—A whirlwind some weak, crippled, fallen dove.
For her half brother Morgane had conceived
A morbid hatred; in that much she grieved,
Envious and jealous, for that high renown
And majesty the King for his fast crown
Thro' worship had acquired. And once he said,
"The closest kin to state are those to dread:
No honor such to crush: envenoming
All those kind tongues of blood that try to sing
Petition to the soul, while conscience quakes
Huddled, but stern to hearts whose cold pride takes."
And well she knew that Arthur: mightier
Than Accolon, without Excalibur
Were as a stingless hornet in the joust
With all his foreign weapons. So her trust
Smiled certain of conclusion; eloquent
Gave lofty heart bold hope that at large eyes
Piled up imperial dreams of power and prize.
And in her carven chamber, oaken dark,
Traceried and arrased, o'er the barren park
That dripped with Autumn,—for November lay
Swathed frostily in fog on every spray,—
Thought at her tri-arched casement lone, one night,
Ere yet came knowledge of that test of might.
Her lord in slumber and the castle dull
With silence or with sad wind-music full.
"And he removed?—fond fool!he is removed!
Death-dull from feet to hair and graveward shoved
From royalty to that degraded state
But purpler pomp! But, see! regenerate
Another monarch rises—Accolon!—
Love! Love! with state more ermined; balmy son
Of gods not men, and nobler hence to rule.
Sweet Love almighty, terrible to school
Harsh hearts to gentleness!—Then all this realm's
Iron-huskéd flower of war, which overwhelms
With rust and havoc, shall explode and bloom
An asphodel of peace with joy's perfume.
And then, sweet Launcelots and sweet Tristrams proud,
Sweet Gueneveres, sweet Isouds, now allowed
No pleasures but what wary, stolen hours
In golden places have their flaming flowers,
Shall have curled feasts of passion evermore.
Poor out-thrust Love, now shivering at the door,
No longer, sweet neglected, thou thrust off,
Insulted and derided: nor the scoff
Of bully Power, whose heart of insult flings
Off for the roar of arms the appeal that clings
And lifts a tearful, prayerful pitiful face
Up from his brutal feet: this shrine where grace
Lays woman's life for every sacrifice—
To him so little, yet of what pure price,
Her all, being all her all for love!—her soul
Life, honor, earth and firmamental whole
Of God's glad universe; stars, moon and sun;
Creation, death; life ended, life begun.
And if by fleshly love all Heaven's debarred,
Its sinuous revolving spheres instarred,
Then Hell were Heaven with love to those who knew
Love which God's Heaven encouraged—love that drew
Hips, head and hair in fiends' devouring claws
Down, down its pit's hurled sucking, as down draws,—
Yet lip to narrow lip with whom we love,—
A whirlwind some weak, crippled, fallen dove.
"Then this lank Urience? He who is lord.—Where is thy worry? for, hath he no sword?No dangerous dagger I, hid softly hereSharp as an adder's fang? or for that earNo instant poison which insinuates,Tightens quick pulses, while one breathing waits,With ice and death? For often men who sleepOn eider-down wake not, but closely keepSuch secrets in their graves to rot and rotTo dust and maggots;—of these—which his lot?"Thus she conspired with her that rainy nightLone in her chamber; when no haggard, white,Wan, watery moon dreamed on the streaming pane,But on the leads beat an incessant rain,And sighed and moaned a weary wind alongThe turrets and torn poplars stirred to song.
"Then this lank Urience? He who is lord.—
Where is thy worry? for, hath he no sword?
No dangerous dagger I, hid softly here
Sharp as an adder's fang? or for that ear
No instant poison which insinuates,
Tightens quick pulses, while one breathing waits,
With ice and death? For often men who sleep
On eider-down wake not, but closely keep
Such secrets in their graves to rot and rot
To dust and maggots;—of these—which his lot?"
Thus she conspired with her that rainy night
Lone in her chamber; when no haggard, white,
Wan, watery moon dreamed on the streaming pane,
But on the leads beat an incessant rain,
And sighed and moaned a weary wind along
The turrets and torn poplars stirred to song.
So grew her face severe as skies that takeDark forces of full storm, sound-shod, that shakeWith murmurous feet black hills, and stab with fireA pine some moaning forest mourns as sire.So touched her countenance that dark intent;And to still eyes stern thoughts a passion sent,As midnight waters luminous glass deepSuggestive worlds of austere stars in sleep,Vague ghostly gray locked in their hollow gloom.Then as if some vast wind had swept the room,Silent, intense, had raised her from her seat,Of dim, great arms had made her a retreat,Secret as love to move in, like some ghost,Noiseless as death and subtle as sharp frost,Poised like a light and borne as carefully,Trod she the gusty hall where shadowyThe stirring hangings rolled a Pagan war.And there the mail of Urience shone. A star,Glimmering above, a dying cresset droppedFrom the stone vault and flared. And here she stoppedAnd took the sword bright, burnished by his page,And ruddy as a flame with restless rage.Grasping this death unto the chamber whereSlept innocent her spouse she moved—an airTwined in soft, glossy sendal; or a fitOf faery song a wicked charm in it,A spell that sings seductive on to death.Then paused she at one chamber; for a breathListened: and here her son Sir Ewain slept,He who of ravens a black army kept,In war than fiercest men more terrible,That tore forth eyes of kings who blinded fell.Sure that he slept, to Urience stole and stoodDim by his couch. About her heart hot bloodCaught strangling, then throbbed thudding fever upTo her broad eyes, like wine whirled in a cup.
So grew her face severe as skies that take
Dark forces of full storm, sound-shod, that shake
With murmurous feet black hills, and stab with fire
A pine some moaning forest mourns as sire.
So touched her countenance that dark intent;
And to still eyes stern thoughts a passion sent,
As midnight waters luminous glass deep
Suggestive worlds of austere stars in sleep,
Vague ghostly gray locked in their hollow gloom.
Then as if some vast wind had swept the room,
Silent, intense, had raised her from her seat,
Of dim, great arms had made her a retreat,
Secret as love to move in, like some ghost,
Noiseless as death and subtle as sharp frost,
Poised like a light and borne as carefully,
Trod she the gusty hall where shadowy
The stirring hangings rolled a Pagan war.
And there the mail of Urience shone. A star,
Glimmering above, a dying cresset dropped
From the stone vault and flared. And here she stopped
And took the sword bright, burnished by his page,
And ruddy as a flame with restless rage.
Grasping this death unto the chamber where
Slept innocent her spouse she moved—an air
Twined in soft, glossy sendal; or a fit
Of faery song a wicked charm in it,
A spell that sings seductive on to death.
Then paused she at one chamber; for a breath
Listened: and here her son Sir Ewain slept,
He who of ravens a black army kept,
In war than fiercest men more terrible,
That tore forth eyes of kings who blinded fell.
Sure that he slept, to Urience stole and stood
Dim by his couch. About her heart hot blood
Caught strangling, then throbbed thudding fever up
To her broad eyes, like wine whirled in a cup.
Then came rare Recollection, with a mouthSweet as the honeyed sunbeams of the SouthTrickling thro' perplexed ripples of low leaves;To whose faint form a veil of starshine cleavesIntricate gauze from memoried eyes to feet;—Feet sandaled with crushed, sifted snows and fleetTo come and go and airy anxiously.She, trembling to her, like a flower a beeNests in and makes an audible mouth of muskDripping a downy language in the dusk,Laid lips to ears and luted memories ofNow hateful Urience:—Her maiden love,That willing went from Caerlleon to GoreOne dazzling day of Autumn. How a boar,Wild as the wonder of the blazing wood,Raged at her from a cavernous solitude,Which, crimson-creepered, yawned the bristling curseMurderous upon her; how her steed waxed worseAnd, snorting terror, fled unmanageable,Pursued with fear, and flung her from the selle,Soft slipping on a bank of springy mossThat couched her swooning. In an utter lossOf mind and limbs she only knew twas thus—As one who pants beneath an incubus:—The boar thrust toward her a tusked snout and fangedOf hideous bristles, and the whole wood clangedAnd buzzed and boomed a thousand sounds and lightsLawless about her brain, like leaves fierce nightsOf hurricane harvest shouting: then she knewA fury thunder twixt it—and fleet flewRich-rooted moss and sandy loam that heldDark-buried shadows of the wild, and swelledContinual echoes with the thud of strife,And breath of man and brute that warred for life;And all the air, made mad with foam and forms,Spun froth and wrestled twixt her hair and arms,While trampled caked the stricken leaves or shredHummed whirling, and snapped brittle branches dead.And when she rose and leaned her throbbing head,Which burst its uncoifed rays of raven hairDown swelling shoulders pure and faultless fair,On one milk, marvelous arm of fluid grace,Beheld the brute thing throttled and the faceOf angry Urience over, browed like Might,One red, swoln arm, that pinned the hairy fright,Strong as a god's, iron at the gullet's brawn;Dug in his midriff, the close knees updrawnWedged deep the glutton sides that quaked and stroveA shaggy bulk, whose sharp hoofs horny drove.Thus man and brute burned bent; when Urience slippedOne arm, the horror's tearing tusks had rippedAnd ribboned redly, to the dagger's hilt,Which at his hip hung long a haft gold-gilt;Its rapid splinter drew; beamed twice and thriceHigh in the sun its ghastliness of icePlunged—and the great boar, stretched in sullen death,Weakened thro' wild veins, groaned laborious breath.
Then came rare Recollection, with a mouth
Sweet as the honeyed sunbeams of the South
Trickling thro' perplexed ripples of low leaves;
To whose faint form a veil of starshine cleaves
Intricate gauze from memoried eyes to feet;—
Feet sandaled with crushed, sifted snows and fleet
To come and go and airy anxiously.
She, trembling to her, like a flower a bee
Nests in and makes an audible mouth of musk
Dripping a downy language in the dusk,
Laid lips to ears and luted memories of
Now hateful Urience:—Her maiden love,
That willing went from Caerlleon to Gore
One dazzling day of Autumn. How a boar,
Wild as the wonder of the blazing wood,
Raged at her from a cavernous solitude,
Which, crimson-creepered, yawned the bristling curse
Murderous upon her; how her steed waxed worse
And, snorting terror, fled unmanageable,
Pursued with fear, and flung her from the selle,
Soft slipping on a bank of springy moss
That couched her swooning. In an utter loss
Of mind and limbs she only knew twas thus—
As one who pants beneath an incubus:—
The boar thrust toward her a tusked snout and fanged
Of hideous bristles, and the whole wood clanged
And buzzed and boomed a thousand sounds and lights
Lawless about her brain, like leaves fierce nights
Of hurricane harvest shouting: then she knew
A fury thunder twixt it—and fleet flew
Rich-rooted moss and sandy loam that held
Dark-buried shadows of the wild, and swelled
Continual echoes with the thud of strife,
And breath of man and brute that warred for life;
And all the air, made mad with foam and forms,
Spun froth and wrestled twixt her hair and arms,
While trampled caked the stricken leaves or shred
Hummed whirling, and snapped brittle branches dead.
And when she rose and leaned her throbbing head,
Which burst its uncoifed rays of raven hair
Down swelling shoulders pure and faultless fair,
On one milk, marvelous arm of fluid grace,
Beheld the brute thing throttled and the face
Of angry Urience over, browed like Might,
One red, swoln arm, that pinned the hairy fright,
Strong as a god's, iron at the gullet's brawn;
Dug in his midriff, the close knees updrawn
Wedged deep the glutton sides that quaked and strove
A shaggy bulk, whose sharp hoofs horny drove.
Thus man and brute burned bent; when Urience slipped
One arm, the horror's tearing tusks had ripped
And ribboned redly, to the dagger's hilt,
Which at his hip hung long a haft gold-gilt;
Its rapid splinter drew; beamed twice and thrice
High in the sun its ghastliness of ice
Plunged—and the great boar, stretched in sullen death,
Weakened thro' wild veins, groaned laborious breath.
And how he brought her water from a wellThat rustled freshness near them, as it fellFrom its full-mantled urn, in his deep casque,And prayed her quaff; then bathed her brow, a taskThat had accompaning tears of joy and vowsOf love, sweet intercourse of eyes and brows,And many clinging kisses eloquent.And how, when dressed his arm, behind him bentShe clasped him on the same steed and they wentOn thro' the gold wood toward the golden West,Till on one low hill's forest-covered crestUp in the gold his castle's battlements pressed.And then she felt she'd loved him till had comeFame of the love of Isoud, whom from homeBrought knightly Tristram o'er the Irish foam,And Guenevere's for Launcelot of the Lake.And then how passion from these seemed to wakeLonging for some great gallant who would slake—And such found Accolon.And then she thoughtHow far she'd fallen and how darkly fraughtWith consequence was this. Then what distressWere hers and his—her lover's; and successHow doubly difficult if Arthur slain,King Urience lived to assert his right to reign.So paused she pondering on the blade; her lipsBreathless and close as close cold finger tipsHugged the huge weapon's hilt. And so she sighed,"Nay! long, too long hast lived who shouldst have diedEven in the womb abortive! who these yearsHast leashed sweet life to care with stinging tears,A knot thus harshly severed!—As thou artInto the elements naked!"O'er his heartThe long sword hesitated, lean as crime,Descended redly once. And like a rhymeOf nice words fairly fitted forming on,—A sudden ceasing and the harmony gone,So ran to death the life of Urience,A strong song incomplete of broken sense.There glowered the crimeful Queen. The glistening swordUnfleshed, flung by her wronged and murdered lord;And the dark blood spread broader thro' the sheetTo drip a horror at impassive feetAnd blur the polished oak. But lofty sheStood proud, relentless; in her ecstacyA lovely devil; a crowned lust that criedOn Accolon; that harlot which defiedHeaven with a voice of pulses clamorous asSteep storm that down a cavernous mountain passBlasphemes an hundred echoes; with like powerThe inner harlot called its paramour:Him whom King Arthur had commanded, whenBorne from the lists, be granted her againAs his blithe gift and welcome from that joust,For treacherous love and her adulterous lust.And while she stood revolving how her deed'sConcealment were secured,—a grind of steeds,Arms, jingling stirrups, voices loud that cursedFierce in the northern court. To her athirstFor him her lover, war and power it spoke,Him victor and so King; and then awokeA yearning to behold, to quit the dead.So a wild specter down wide stairs she fled,Burst on a glare of links and glittering mail,That shrunk her eyes and made her senses quail.To her a bulk of iron, bearded fierce,Down from a steaming steed into her ears,"This from the King, a boon!" laughed harsh and hoarse;Two henchmen beckoned, who pitched sheer with force,Loud clanging at her feet, hacked, hewn and red,Crusted with blood a knight in armor—dead;Even Accolon, tossed with the mocking scoff"This from the King!"—phantoms in fog rode off.And what remains? From Camelot to GoreThat right she weeping fled; then to the shore,—As that romancer tells,—Avilion,Where she hath Majesty gold-crowned yet wan;In darkest cypress a frail pitious faceQueenly and lovely; 'round sad eyes the traceOf immemorial tears as for some crime:They future fixed, expectant of the timeWhen the forgiving Arthur cometh andShall have to rule all that lost golden landThat drifts vague amber in forgotten seasOf surgeless turquoise dim with mysteries.And so was seen Morgana nevermore,Save once when from the Cornwall coast she boreThe wounded Arthur from that last fought fightOf Camlan in a black barge into night.But oft some see her with a palfried bandOf serge-stoled maidens thro' the drowsy landOf Autumn glimmer; when are sharply strewnThe red leaves, while broad in the east a moonSwings full of frost a lustrous globe of gleams,Faint on the mooning hills as shapes in dreams.
And how he brought her water from a well
That rustled freshness near them, as it fell
From its full-mantled urn, in his deep casque,
And prayed her quaff; then bathed her brow, a task
That had accompaning tears of joy and vows
Of love, sweet intercourse of eyes and brows,
And many clinging kisses eloquent.
And how, when dressed his arm, behind him bent
She clasped him on the same steed and they went
On thro' the gold wood toward the golden West,
Till on one low hill's forest-covered crest
Up in the gold his castle's battlements pressed.
And then she felt she'd loved him till had come
Fame of the love of Isoud, whom from home
Brought knightly Tristram o'er the Irish foam,
And Guenevere's for Launcelot of the Lake.
And then how passion from these seemed to wake
Longing for some great gallant who would slake—
And such found Accolon.
And then she thought
How far she'd fallen and how darkly fraught
With consequence was this. Then what distress
Were hers and his—her lover's; and success
How doubly difficult if Arthur slain,
King Urience lived to assert his right to reign.
So paused she pondering on the blade; her lips
Breathless and close as close cold finger tips
Hugged the huge weapon's hilt. And so she sighed,
"Nay! long, too long hast lived who shouldst have died
Even in the womb abortive! who these years
Hast leashed sweet life to care with stinging tears,
A knot thus harshly severed!—As thou art
Into the elements naked!"
O'er his heart
The long sword hesitated, lean as crime,
Descended redly once. And like a rhyme
Of nice words fairly fitted forming on,—
A sudden ceasing and the harmony gone,
So ran to death the life of Urience,
A strong song incomplete of broken sense.
There glowered the crimeful Queen. The glistening sword
Unfleshed, flung by her wronged and murdered lord;
And the dark blood spread broader thro' the sheet
To drip a horror at impassive feet
And blur the polished oak. But lofty she
Stood proud, relentless; in her ecstacy
A lovely devil; a crowned lust that cried
On Accolon; that harlot which defied
Heaven with a voice of pulses clamorous as
Steep storm that down a cavernous mountain pass
Blasphemes an hundred echoes; with like power
The inner harlot called its paramour:
Him whom King Arthur had commanded, when
Borne from the lists, be granted her again
As his blithe gift and welcome from that joust,
For treacherous love and her adulterous lust.
And while she stood revolving how her deed's
Concealment were secured,—a grind of steeds,
Arms, jingling stirrups, voices loud that cursed
Fierce in the northern court. To her athirst
For him her lover, war and power it spoke,
Him victor and so King; and then awoke
A yearning to behold, to quit the dead.
So a wild specter down wide stairs she fled,
Burst on a glare of links and glittering mail,
That shrunk her eyes and made her senses quail.
To her a bulk of iron, bearded fierce,
Down from a steaming steed into her ears,
"This from the King, a boon!" laughed harsh and hoarse;
Two henchmen beckoned, who pitched sheer with force,
Loud clanging at her feet, hacked, hewn and red,
Crusted with blood a knight in armor—dead;
Even Accolon, tossed with the mocking scoff
"This from the King!"—phantoms in fog rode off.
And what remains? From Camelot to Gore
That right she weeping fled; then to the shore,—
As that romancer tells,—Avilion,
Where she hath Majesty gold-crowned yet wan;
In darkest cypress a frail pitious face
Queenly and lovely; 'round sad eyes the trace
Of immemorial tears as for some crime:
They future fixed, expectant of the time
When the forgiving Arthur cometh and
Shall have to rule all that lost golden land
That drifts vague amber in forgotten seas
Of surgeless turquoise dim with mysteries.
And so was seen Morgana nevermore,
Save once when from the Cornwall coast she bore
The wounded Arthur from that last fought fight
Of Camlan in a black barge into night.
But oft some see her with a palfried band
Of serge-stoled maidens thro' the drowsy land
Of Autumn glimmer; when are sharply strewn
The red leaves, while broad in the east a moon
Swings full of frost a lustrous globe of gleams,
Faint on the mooning hills as shapes in dreams.
HE?why, a tall Franconian strong and young,Brown as a walnut the first frost hath hulled;A soul of full endeavor powerfulBound in lithe limbs, knit into grace and strengthOf bronze-like muscles elegant, that poisedA head like Hope's; and then the manly linesOf face developed by action and mobileTo each suggestive impulse of the mind,Of smiles of buoyancy or scowls of gloom.—And what deep eyes were his!—Aye; I can seeTheir wild and restless disks of luminous nightInstinct with haughtiness that sneered at Fate,Glared cold conclusion to all circumstance,As with loud law, to his advantage swift:With scorn derisive that shot out a barb,Stabbed Superstition to its dagger hilt;That smiled a thrust-like smile which curled the lip,A vicious heresy with incredible lore,When God's or holy Mary's name came forthExclaimed in reverence or astonishment;And then would say,"What is this God you mouth,Employ whose name to sanctify and damn?—A benedictive curse?—'T hath past my skillOf grave interpretation. And your faith—Distinguishment unseen, design unlawed.For earth, air, fire or water or keen cold,Hints no existence of such, worships not,Such as men's minds profess. Rather, meseems,Throned have they one such as their hopes have wroughtIn hope there may prove such an one in deathFor Paradise or punishment. I holdHe juster were and would be kinglier kindIn sovereign mercy and a prodigal—Not to few favored heads who, crowned with state,Rule sceptered Infamies—of indulgence freeTo all that burn luxuriant incense onShrines while they prayer him love's obedience.Are all not children of the same weak mold?Clay of His Adam-modeled clay made quick?Endowed with the like hopes, loves, fears and hates,Our mother's weaknesses? And these, forsooth,These little crowns that lord it o'er His world,Tricked up with imitative majesty,God-countenanced arrogances, throned may stillCry, 'crawl and worship, for we are as godsThrough God! great gods incarnate of his kind!'—Omnipotent Wrong-representatives!With might that blasts the world with wars and wringsGroans from pale Nations with hell's tyranny.So to my mind real monarch only he—Your Satan cramped in Hell!—aye, by the fiend!To pygmy Earth's frail tinsel majesties,That ape a God in a sonorous Heaven.Grant me the Devil in all mercy then,For I will none of such! a fiend for friendWhile Earth is of the earth; and afterward—Nay! ransack not To-morrow till To-day,If all that's joy engulf you when it is."And laughed an oily laugh of easy jestTo bow out God and hand the Devil in.—I met him here at Ammendorf one Spring,Toward the close of April when the Harz,Veined to their ruin-crested summits, pulsedA fluid life of green and budded goldBeneath pure breathing skies of boundless blue:Where low-yoked oxen, yellow to the knees,Along the fluted meadow, freshly ploughed,Plodded and snuffed the fragrance of the soil,The free bird sang exultant in the sun.Triumphant Spring with hinted hopes of MayAnd jaunty June, her mouth a puckered rose.Here at this very hostelery o' The Owl;Mine host there sleek served cannikins of wineBeneath that elm now touseled by that shrew,Lean Winter. Well!—a lordly vintage that!With tang of fires which had sucked out their soulFrom feverish sun-vats, cooled it from the moon's;From wine-skin bellies of the bursting grapeTrodden, in darkness of old cellars agedEven to the tingling smack of olden earth.Rich! I remember!—wine that spurred the blood—Thou hast none such, I swear, nor wilt again!—That brought the heart loud to the generous mouth,And made the eyes unlatticed casements whenceThe good man's soul laughed interested out.Stoups of rare royal Rhenish, such they sayAs Necromance hides guarded in vast casksOf antique make far in the Kyffhäuser,The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.So, mellowed by that wine to friendship frank,He spake me his intent in coming here;But not one word of what his parentage;But this his name was, Rudolf, and his home,Franconia; but nor why he left nor when:His mind to live a forester and beEnfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's trainOf buff and green; and so to his estateEven now was bound, a youth of twenty-three.And when he ceased the fire in his eyesWorked restless as a troubled animal's,Which hate-enraged can burn a steady flame,Brute merciless. And thus I mused with me,When he had ceased to fulminate at state,"Another Count von Hackelnburg the fiendHath tricked unto the chase!—for hounds from Hell?"But answered nothing, save light words of cheerAs best become fleet friends warm wine doth make.Then as it chanced, old Kurt had come that mornWith some six of his jerkined forestersFrom the Thuringian forest; damp with dew;Red-cheeked as morn with early travel; boundFor Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel passed.Chief huntsman he then to the goodly Duke,And father of the sunniest maiden hereIn Ammendorf, the blameless Ilsabe;Who, motherless, the white-haired father prizedA jewel priceless. As huge barons' ghostsGuard big, accumulated hoards of wealth,Fast-sealed in caverned cellars, robber wells,Beneath the dungeoned Dummburg, so he watchedHer, all his world in her who was his wealth.A second Lora of Thuringia she.Faultless for love, instilled all souls with love,Who, in the favor of her maiden smile,Felt friendship grow up like a golden thought;A life of love from words; and light that fellAnd wrought calm influence from her pure blue eyes.Hair sedate and austerely dressed o'er browsWhite as a Harz dove's wing; hair with the hueOf twilight mists the sun hath soaked with gold.A Tyrolean melody that broughtDim dreams of Alpine heights, of shepherds brown,Goat-skinned, with healthy cheeks and wrinkled lipsThat fill wild oaten pipes on wand'ring ways,Embowered deep, with mountain melodies,—Simple with love and plaintive even to tears,—Her presence, her sweet presence like a song.And when she left, it was as when one hathBeheld a moonlit Undine, ere the mindAdjusts one thought, cleave thro' the glassy RhineA glittering beauty wet, and gone againA flash—the soul drifts wondering on in dreams.Some thirty years agone is that; and I,Commissioner of the Duke—no sinecureI can assure you—had scarce reached the ageOf thirty (then some three years of that House).Thro' me the bold Franconian, whom at first,By bitter principles and scorn of state—Developed into argument thro' wine—The foresthood like was to be denied,Was then enfellowed. "Yes," I said, "he's young;True, rashly young! yet, see: a wiry frame,A chamois' footing, and a face for right;An eye which likes me not, but quick with pride,And aimed at thought, a butt it may not miss:A soul with virgin virtues which crude fleshMakes seem but vices, these but God may see—Develop these. But, if there's aught of worth,Body or mind, in him, Kurt, thou wilt know,And to the surface wear, as divers winFrom hideous ooze and life rich jewels lostOf polished pureness, worthless left to night,Thou or thy daughter, and inspire for good."A year thereafter was it that I heardOf Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe,Then their betrothal. And it was from this,—For, ah, that Ilsabe! that Ilsabe!—Good Mary Mother! how she haunts me yet!She, that true touchstone which philosophers feignContacts and golds all base; a woman whoCould touch all evil into good in man.—Surmised I of the excellency whichRefinement of her gentle company,Warm presence of chaste beauty, had resolvedHis fiery nature to, conditioning slave.And so I came from Brunswick—as you know—Is custom of the Duke or, by his sealCommissioned proxy, his commissioner,—To test the marksmanship of Rudolf whoSucceeded Kurt with marriage of his child,An heir of Kuno.—He?—Great grandfatherOf Kurt, and one this forestkeepershipWas first possesor of; established thus—Or such the tale they told me 'round the hearths.Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train,Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who cameWith vast magnificence of knights and hounds,And satin-tuniced nobles curled and plumedTo hunt Thuringian deer. Then Morn too slowOn her blithe feet was; quick with laughing eyesTo morrow mortal eyes and lazy limbs;Rather on tip-toed hills recumbent yawned,Aroused an hour too soon; ashamed, disrobed,Rubbed the stiff sleep from eyes that still would close,While brayed the hollow horns and bayed lean hounds,And cheered gallants until the dingles dinned,Where searched the climbing mists or, compact light,Fled breathless white, clung scared a moted gray,Low unsunned cloudlands of the castled hills.And then near mid-noon from a swarthy brakeThe ban-dogs roused a red gigantic stag,Lashed to whose back with grinding knotted cords,Borne with whom like a nightmare's incubus,A man shrieked; burry-bearded and his hairKinked with dry, tangled burrs, and he himselfEmaciated and half naked. FromThe wear of wildest passage thro' the wild,Rent red by briars, torn and bruised by rocks.—For, such the law then, when the peasant chasedOr slew the dun deer of his tyrant lords,As punishment the torturing withes and spineOf some big stag, a gift of game and wildEnough till death—death in the antlered herdOr crawling famine in bleak, haggard haunts.Then was the dark Duke glad, and forthwith criedTo all his dewy train a rich rewardFor him who slew the stag and saved the man,But death to him who slew the man and stag,The careless error of a loose attempt.So crashed the hunt along wild, glimmering waysThro' creepers and vast brush beneath gnarled trees,Up a scorched torrent's bed. Yet still refusedEach that sure shot; the risk too desperateThe poor life and the golden gift beside.So this young Kuno with two eyes whereinHunt with excitement kindled reckless fireClamored, "And are ye cowards?—Good your grace,You shall not chafe!—The fiend direct my ball!"And fired into a covert deeply packed,An intertangled wall of matted night,Wherein the eye might vainly strive and striveTo pierce one foot or earn one point beyond.But, ha! the huge stag staggered from the brakeHeart-hit and perished. That wan wretch unhurtSoon bondless lay condoled. But the great Duke,Charmed with the eagle shot, admired the youth,There to him and his heirs forever gaveThe forest keepership.But envious tonguesWere soon at wag; and whispered went the taleOf how the shot was free, and that the ballsUsed by young Kuno were free bullets, whichMolded were cast in influence of the fiendBy magic and directed by the fiend.Of some effect these tales were and some forceHad with the Duke, who lent an ear so farAs to ordain Kuno's descendants allTo proof of skill ere their succession toThe father's office. Kurt himself hath shotThe silver ring from out the popinjay's beak—A good shot he, you see, who would succeed.The Devil guards his mysteries close as God.For who can say what elementariesDemoniac lurk in desolate dells and woodsShadowy? malicious vassals of that powerWho signs himself, thro' these, a slave to those,Those mortals who act open with his Hell,Those only who seek secretly and woo.Of these free, fatal bullets let me speak:There may be such; our Earth hath things as strange;Then only in coarse fancies may exist;For fancy is among our peasantryA limber juggler with the weird and dark;For Superstition hides not her grim face,A skeleton grin on leprous ghastliness,From Ignorance's mossy thatches low.A cross-way, as I heard, among gaunt hills,A solitude convulsed of rocks and treesBlasted; and on the stony cross-road drawnA bloody circle with a bloody sword;Herein rude characters; a skull and thighsFantastic fixed before a fitful fireOf spiteful coals. Eleven of the clockCast, the first bullet leaves the mold,—the leadMixed with three bullets that have hit their mark,Burnt blood,—the wounded Sacramental Host,Unswallowed and unhallowed, oozed when shotFixed to a riven pine.—Ere twelve o'clock,When dwindling specters in their rotting shroudsQuit musty tombs to mumble hollow woesIn Midnight's horrored ear, with never a cry,Word or weak whisper, till that hour sound,Must the free balls be cast; and these shall beIn number three and sixty; three of whichSemial—he the Devil's minister—Claims for his master and stamps as his ownTo hit awry their mark, askew for harm.Those other sixty shall not miss their mark.No cry, no word, no whisper, tho' there gibeMost monstrous shapes that flicker in thick mistLewd human countenances or leer outSwoln animal faces with fair forms of men,While wide-winged owls fan the drear, dying coals,That lick thin, slender tongues of purple fireFrom viperous red, and croaks the night-hawk near.No cry, no word, no whisper should there comeWeeping a wandering form with weary, whiteAnd pleading countenance of her you love,Faded with tears of waiting; beckoningWith gray, large arms or censuring; her shameIn dull and desolate eyes; who, if you speakOr stagger from that circle—hideous change!—Shrinks, faced a hag of million wrinkles, whichRidge scaly sharpness of protruding bones,To rip you limb from limb with taloned claws.Nor be deceived if some far midnight bellBoom that anticipated hour, nor leaveBy one short inch the bloody orbit, forThe minion varlets of Hell's majestyExpectant cirque its dim circumference.But when the hour of midnight smites, be sureYou have your bullets, neither more nor less;For, if thro' fear one more or less you have,Your soul is forfeit to those agencies,Right rathe who are to rend it from the flesh.And while that hour of midnight sounds a dinOf hurrying hoofs and shouting outriders—Six snorting steeds postilioned roll a stageBlack and with groaning wheels of spinning fire,"Room there!—ho! ho!—who bars the mountain-way!On over him!"—but fear not nor fare forth,—'Tis but the last trick of your bounden slave:And ere the red moon strives from dingy cloudsAnd dives again, high the huge leaders leapIron fore-hoofs flashing and big eyes like gledes,And, spun a spiral spark into the night,Whistling the phantom flies and fades away.Some say there comes no stage, but Hackelnburg,Wild Huntsman of the Harz, rides hoarse in storm,Dashing the dead leaves with dark dogs of hellDireful thro' whirling thickets, and his hornCroaks doleful as an owl's hoot while he hurlsStraight 'neath rain-streaming skies of echoes, sheerPlunging the magic circle horse and hounds.And then will come, plutonian clad and slim,Upon a stallion vast intensely black,Semial, Satan's lurid minister,To hail you and inform you and assure.—Enough! these wives-tales heard to what I've seen;To Ammendorf I came; and Rudolf thereWith Kurt and all his picturesque forestersMet me. And then the rounding year was ripe;Throbbing the red heart of full Autumn: WhenEach morning gleams crisp frost on shriveled fields;Each noon sits veiled in mysteries of mist;Each night unrolls a miracle woof of stars,Where moon—bare-bosomed goddess of the hunt—Wades calm, crushed clouds or treads the vaster blue.Then I proposed the season's hunt; till eveThe test of Rudolf's skill postponed, with whichAnnoyed he seemed. And so it was I heardHow he an execrable marksman was,And whispered tales of near, incredible shotsThat wryed their mark, while in his flint-lock's panFlashed often harmless powder, while wild gameStared fearless on him and indulgent stood,An open butt to such wide marksmanship.Howbeit, he that day acquitted himOf these maligners' cavils; in the huntMissing no shot however rash he madeOr distant thro' thick intercepting trees;And the piled, curious game brought down of allGood marksmen of that train had not sufficed,Doubled, nay, trebled, to have matched his heap.And wonderstruck thejägerssaw, nor knewHow to excuse them. My indulgence giv'n,Still swore that only yesterday old KurtHad touched his daughter's tears and Rudolf's wrathBy vowing end to their betrothéd love,Unless that love developed better aimAgainst the morrow's test; his ancestor'sHigh fame should not be damaged. So he stormed,But bowed his gray head and wept silently;Then looking up forgave when big he sawTears in his daughter's eyes and Rudolf goneForth in the night that wailed with coming storm.Before this inn, The Owl, assembled cameThe nice-primped villagers to view the trial:Fairfräuleinsand blonde, comely, healthyfraus;Stout burgers. And among them I did markKurt and his daughter. He, a florid faceOf pride and joy for Rudolf's strange success;She, radiant and flounced in flowing garbOf bridal white deep-draped and crowned with flowers;For Kurt insisted this their marriage eveShould Rudolf come successful from the chase.So pleased was I with what I'd seen him do,The test of skill superfluous seemed and soWas on the bare brink of announcement, when,Out of the evening heaven's hardening red,Like a white warning loosed for augury,A word of God some fallen angel prizedAs his last all of heaven, penitent,Hell-freed, sent minister to save a soul,A wild dove clove the luminous winds and there,A wafted waif, pruned settled on a bough:Then I, "Thy weapon, Rudolph, pierce its head!"Cried pointing, "And chief-forester art thou!"Pale as a mist and wavering he turned;"I had a dream—" then faltered as he aimed,"A woman's whim!" But starting from the pressScreamed Ilsabe, "My dove!" to plead its lifeCame—cracked the rifle and untouched the doveRose beating lustrous wings, but Ilsabe—"God's wrath! the sight!"—fell smitten, and the bloodSprang red from shattered brow and silent hair—That bullet strangely thro' her brow and brain....And what of Rudolf? ah! of him you ask?That proud Franconian who would scoff at FateAnd scorn all state; who cried black Satan friendSooner than our white Christ;—why, he went madO' the moment, and into the haunted HarzFled, an unholy thing, and perished thereThe prey of demons of the Dummburg. ButI one of few less superstitious whoSay, as the finale of a madman's deed,He in the Bodé, from that ragged rock,The Devil's Dancing Place, did leap and die.
HE?why, a tall Franconian strong and young,Brown as a walnut the first frost hath hulled;A soul of full endeavor powerfulBound in lithe limbs, knit into grace and strengthOf bronze-like muscles elegant, that poisedA head like Hope's; and then the manly linesOf face developed by action and mobileTo each suggestive impulse of the mind,Of smiles of buoyancy or scowls of gloom.—And what deep eyes were his!—Aye; I can seeTheir wild and restless disks of luminous nightInstinct with haughtiness that sneered at Fate,Glared cold conclusion to all circumstance,As with loud law, to his advantage swift:With scorn derisive that shot out a barb,Stabbed Superstition to its dagger hilt;That smiled a thrust-like smile which curled the lip,A vicious heresy with incredible lore,When God's or holy Mary's name came forthExclaimed in reverence or astonishment;And then would say,"What is this God you mouth,Employ whose name to sanctify and damn?—A benedictive curse?—'T hath past my skillOf grave interpretation. And your faith—Distinguishment unseen, design unlawed.For earth, air, fire or water or keen cold,Hints no existence of such, worships not,Such as men's minds profess. Rather, meseems,Throned have they one such as their hopes have wroughtIn hope there may prove such an one in deathFor Paradise or punishment. I holdHe juster were and would be kinglier kindIn sovereign mercy and a prodigal—Not to few favored heads who, crowned with state,Rule sceptered Infamies—of indulgence freeTo all that burn luxuriant incense onShrines while they prayer him love's obedience.Are all not children of the same weak mold?Clay of His Adam-modeled clay made quick?Endowed with the like hopes, loves, fears and hates,Our mother's weaknesses? And these, forsooth,These little crowns that lord it o'er His world,Tricked up with imitative majesty,God-countenanced arrogances, throned may stillCry, 'crawl and worship, for we are as godsThrough God! great gods incarnate of his kind!'—Omnipotent Wrong-representatives!With might that blasts the world with wars and wringsGroans from pale Nations with hell's tyranny.So to my mind real monarch only he—Your Satan cramped in Hell!—aye, by the fiend!To pygmy Earth's frail tinsel majesties,That ape a God in a sonorous Heaven.Grant me the Devil in all mercy then,For I will none of such! a fiend for friendWhile Earth is of the earth; and afterward—Nay! ransack not To-morrow till To-day,If all that's joy engulf you when it is."And laughed an oily laugh of easy jestTo bow out God and hand the Devil in.—I met him here at Ammendorf one Spring,Toward the close of April when the Harz,Veined to their ruin-crested summits, pulsedA fluid life of green and budded goldBeneath pure breathing skies of boundless blue:Where low-yoked oxen, yellow to the knees,Along the fluted meadow, freshly ploughed,Plodded and snuffed the fragrance of the soil,The free bird sang exultant in the sun.Triumphant Spring with hinted hopes of MayAnd jaunty June, her mouth a puckered rose.Here at this very hostelery o' The Owl;Mine host there sleek served cannikins of wineBeneath that elm now touseled by that shrew,Lean Winter. Well!—a lordly vintage that!With tang of fires which had sucked out their soulFrom feverish sun-vats, cooled it from the moon's;From wine-skin bellies of the bursting grapeTrodden, in darkness of old cellars agedEven to the tingling smack of olden earth.Rich! I remember!—wine that spurred the blood—Thou hast none such, I swear, nor wilt again!—That brought the heart loud to the generous mouth,And made the eyes unlatticed casements whenceThe good man's soul laughed interested out.Stoups of rare royal Rhenish, such they sayAs Necromance hides guarded in vast casksOf antique make far in the Kyffhäuser,The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.So, mellowed by that wine to friendship frank,He spake me his intent in coming here;But not one word of what his parentage;But this his name was, Rudolf, and his home,Franconia; but nor why he left nor when:His mind to live a forester and beEnfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's trainOf buff and green; and so to his estateEven now was bound, a youth of twenty-three.And when he ceased the fire in his eyesWorked restless as a troubled animal's,Which hate-enraged can burn a steady flame,Brute merciless. And thus I mused with me,When he had ceased to fulminate at state,"Another Count von Hackelnburg the fiendHath tricked unto the chase!—for hounds from Hell?"But answered nothing, save light words of cheerAs best become fleet friends warm wine doth make.Then as it chanced, old Kurt had come that mornWith some six of his jerkined forestersFrom the Thuringian forest; damp with dew;Red-cheeked as morn with early travel; boundFor Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel passed.Chief huntsman he then to the goodly Duke,And father of the sunniest maiden hereIn Ammendorf, the blameless Ilsabe;Who, motherless, the white-haired father prizedA jewel priceless. As huge barons' ghostsGuard big, accumulated hoards of wealth,Fast-sealed in caverned cellars, robber wells,Beneath the dungeoned Dummburg, so he watchedHer, all his world in her who was his wealth.A second Lora of Thuringia she.Faultless for love, instilled all souls with love,Who, in the favor of her maiden smile,Felt friendship grow up like a golden thought;A life of love from words; and light that fellAnd wrought calm influence from her pure blue eyes.Hair sedate and austerely dressed o'er browsWhite as a Harz dove's wing; hair with the hueOf twilight mists the sun hath soaked with gold.A Tyrolean melody that broughtDim dreams of Alpine heights, of shepherds brown,Goat-skinned, with healthy cheeks and wrinkled lipsThat fill wild oaten pipes on wand'ring ways,Embowered deep, with mountain melodies,—Simple with love and plaintive even to tears,—Her presence, her sweet presence like a song.And when she left, it was as when one hathBeheld a moonlit Undine, ere the mindAdjusts one thought, cleave thro' the glassy RhineA glittering beauty wet, and gone againA flash—the soul drifts wondering on in dreams.Some thirty years agone is that; and I,Commissioner of the Duke—no sinecureI can assure you—had scarce reached the ageOf thirty (then some three years of that House).Thro' me the bold Franconian, whom at first,By bitter principles and scorn of state—Developed into argument thro' wine—The foresthood like was to be denied,Was then enfellowed. "Yes," I said, "he's young;True, rashly young! yet, see: a wiry frame,A chamois' footing, and a face for right;An eye which likes me not, but quick with pride,And aimed at thought, a butt it may not miss:A soul with virgin virtues which crude fleshMakes seem but vices, these but God may see—Develop these. But, if there's aught of worth,Body or mind, in him, Kurt, thou wilt know,And to the surface wear, as divers winFrom hideous ooze and life rich jewels lostOf polished pureness, worthless left to night,Thou or thy daughter, and inspire for good."
HE?why, a tall Franconian strong and young,
Brown as a walnut the first frost hath hulled;
A soul of full endeavor powerful
Bound in lithe limbs, knit into grace and strength
Of bronze-like muscles elegant, that poised
A head like Hope's; and then the manly lines
Of face developed by action and mobile
To each suggestive impulse of the mind,
Of smiles of buoyancy or scowls of gloom.—
And what deep eyes were his!—Aye; I can see
Their wild and restless disks of luminous night
Instinct with haughtiness that sneered at Fate,
Glared cold conclusion to all circumstance,
As with loud law, to his advantage swift:
With scorn derisive that shot out a barb,
Stabbed Superstition to its dagger hilt;
That smiled a thrust-like smile which curled the lip,
A vicious heresy with incredible lore,
When God's or holy Mary's name came forth
Exclaimed in reverence or astonishment;
And then would say,
"What is this God you mouth,
Employ whose name to sanctify and damn?—
A benedictive curse?—'T hath past my skill
Of grave interpretation. And your faith—
Distinguishment unseen, design unlawed.
For earth, air, fire or water or keen cold,
Hints no existence of such, worships not,
Such as men's minds profess. Rather, meseems,
Throned have they one such as their hopes have wrought
In hope there may prove such an one in death
For Paradise or punishment. I hold
He juster were and would be kinglier kind
In sovereign mercy and a prodigal—
Not to few favored heads who, crowned with state,
Rule sceptered Infamies—of indulgence free
To all that burn luxuriant incense on
Shrines while they prayer him love's obedience.
Are all not children of the same weak mold?
Clay of His Adam-modeled clay made quick?
Endowed with the like hopes, loves, fears and hates,
Our mother's weaknesses? And these, forsooth,
These little crowns that lord it o'er His world,
Tricked up with imitative majesty,
God-countenanced arrogances, throned may still
Cry, 'crawl and worship, for we are as gods
Through God! great gods incarnate of his kind!'
—Omnipotent Wrong-representatives!
With might that blasts the world with wars and wrings
Groans from pale Nations with hell's tyranny.
So to my mind real monarch only he—
Your Satan cramped in Hell!—aye, by the fiend!
To pygmy Earth's frail tinsel majesties,
That ape a God in a sonorous Heaven.
Grant me the Devil in all mercy then,
For I will none of such! a fiend for friend
While Earth is of the earth; and afterward—
Nay! ransack not To-morrow till To-day,
If all that's joy engulf you when it is."
And laughed an oily laugh of easy jest
To bow out God and hand the Devil in.—
I met him here at Ammendorf one Spring,
Toward the close of April when the Harz,
Veined to their ruin-crested summits, pulsed
A fluid life of green and budded gold
Beneath pure breathing skies of boundless blue:
Where low-yoked oxen, yellow to the knees,
Along the fluted meadow, freshly ploughed,
Plodded and snuffed the fragrance of the soil,
The free bird sang exultant in the sun.
Triumphant Spring with hinted hopes of May
And jaunty June, her mouth a puckered rose.
Here at this very hostelery o' The Owl;
Mine host there sleek served cannikins of wine
Beneath that elm now touseled by that shrew,
Lean Winter. Well!—a lordly vintage that!
With tang of fires which had sucked out their soul
From feverish sun-vats, cooled it from the moon's;
From wine-skin bellies of the bursting grape
Trodden, in darkness of old cellars aged
Even to the tingling smack of olden earth.
Rich! I remember!—wine that spurred the blood—
Thou hast none such, I swear, nor wilt again!—
That brought the heart loud to the generous mouth,
And made the eyes unlatticed casements whence
The good man's soul laughed interested out.
Stoups of rare royal Rhenish, such they say
As Necromance hides guarded in vast casks
Of antique make far in the Kyffhäuser,
The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.
So, mellowed by that wine to friendship frank,
He spake me his intent in coming here;
But not one word of what his parentage;
But this his name was, Rudolf, and his home,
Franconia; but nor why he left nor when:
His mind to live a forester and be
Enfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's train
Of buff and green; and so to his estate
Even now was bound, a youth of twenty-three.
And when he ceased the fire in his eyes
Worked restless as a troubled animal's,
Which hate-enraged can burn a steady flame,
Brute merciless. And thus I mused with me,
When he had ceased to fulminate at state,
"Another Count von Hackelnburg the fiend
Hath tricked unto the chase!—for hounds from Hell?"
But answered nothing, save light words of cheer
As best become fleet friends warm wine doth make.
Then as it chanced, old Kurt had come that morn
With some six of his jerkined foresters
From the Thuringian forest; damp with dew;
Red-cheeked as morn with early travel; bound
For Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel passed.
Chief huntsman he then to the goodly Duke,
And father of the sunniest maiden here
In Ammendorf, the blameless Ilsabe;
Who, motherless, the white-haired father prized
A jewel priceless. As huge barons' ghosts
Guard big, accumulated hoards of wealth,
Fast-sealed in caverned cellars, robber wells,
Beneath the dungeoned Dummburg, so he watched
Her, all his world in her who was his wealth.
A second Lora of Thuringia she.
Faultless for love, instilled all souls with love,
Who, in the favor of her maiden smile,
Felt friendship grow up like a golden thought;
A life of love from words; and light that fell
And wrought calm influence from her pure blue eyes.
Hair sedate and austerely dressed o'er brows
White as a Harz dove's wing; hair with the hue
Of twilight mists the sun hath soaked with gold.
A Tyrolean melody that brought
Dim dreams of Alpine heights, of shepherds brown,
Goat-skinned, with healthy cheeks and wrinkled lips
That fill wild oaten pipes on wand'ring ways,
Embowered deep, with mountain melodies,—
Simple with love and plaintive even to tears,—
Her presence, her sweet presence like a song.
And when she left, it was as when one hath
Beheld a moonlit Undine, ere the mind
Adjusts one thought, cleave thro' the glassy Rhine
A glittering beauty wet, and gone again
A flash—the soul drifts wondering on in dreams.
Some thirty years agone is that; and I,
Commissioner of the Duke—no sinecure
I can assure you—had scarce reached the age
Of thirty (then some three years of that House).
Thro' me the bold Franconian, whom at first,
By bitter principles and scorn of state—
Developed into argument thro' wine—
The foresthood like was to be denied,
Was then enfellowed. "Yes," I said, "he's young;
True, rashly young! yet, see: a wiry frame,
A chamois' footing, and a face for right;
An eye which likes me not, but quick with pride,
And aimed at thought, a butt it may not miss:
A soul with virgin virtues which crude flesh
Makes seem but vices, these but God may see—
Develop these. But, if there's aught of worth,
Body or mind, in him, Kurt, thou wilt know,
And to the surface wear, as divers win
From hideous ooze and life rich jewels lost
Of polished pureness, worthless left to night,
Thou or thy daughter, and inspire for good."
A year thereafter was it that I heardOf Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe,Then their betrothal. And it was from this,—For, ah, that Ilsabe! that Ilsabe!—Good Mary Mother! how she haunts me yet!She, that true touchstone which philosophers feignContacts and golds all base; a woman whoCould touch all evil into good in man.—Surmised I of the excellency whichRefinement of her gentle company,Warm presence of chaste beauty, had resolvedHis fiery nature to, conditioning slave.And so I came from Brunswick—as you know—Is custom of the Duke or, by his sealCommissioned proxy, his commissioner,—To test the marksmanship of Rudolf whoSucceeded Kurt with marriage of his child,An heir of Kuno.—He?—Great grandfatherOf Kurt, and one this forestkeepershipWas first possesor of; established thus—Or such the tale they told me 'round the hearths.Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train,Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who cameWith vast magnificence of knights and hounds,And satin-tuniced nobles curled and plumedTo hunt Thuringian deer. Then Morn too slowOn her blithe feet was; quick with laughing eyesTo morrow mortal eyes and lazy limbs;Rather on tip-toed hills recumbent yawned,Aroused an hour too soon; ashamed, disrobed,Rubbed the stiff sleep from eyes that still would close,While brayed the hollow horns and bayed lean hounds,And cheered gallants until the dingles dinned,Where searched the climbing mists or, compact light,Fled breathless white, clung scared a moted gray,Low unsunned cloudlands of the castled hills.And then near mid-noon from a swarthy brakeThe ban-dogs roused a red gigantic stag,Lashed to whose back with grinding knotted cords,Borne with whom like a nightmare's incubus,A man shrieked; burry-bearded and his hairKinked with dry, tangled burrs, and he himselfEmaciated and half naked. FromThe wear of wildest passage thro' the wild,Rent red by briars, torn and bruised by rocks.—For, such the law then, when the peasant chasedOr slew the dun deer of his tyrant lords,As punishment the torturing withes and spineOf some big stag, a gift of game and wildEnough till death—death in the antlered herdOr crawling famine in bleak, haggard haunts.Then was the dark Duke glad, and forthwith criedTo all his dewy train a rich rewardFor him who slew the stag and saved the man,But death to him who slew the man and stag,The careless error of a loose attempt.So crashed the hunt along wild, glimmering waysThro' creepers and vast brush beneath gnarled trees,Up a scorched torrent's bed. Yet still refusedEach that sure shot; the risk too desperateThe poor life and the golden gift beside.So this young Kuno with two eyes whereinHunt with excitement kindled reckless fireClamored, "And are ye cowards?—Good your grace,You shall not chafe!—The fiend direct my ball!"And fired into a covert deeply packed,An intertangled wall of matted night,Wherein the eye might vainly strive and striveTo pierce one foot or earn one point beyond.But, ha! the huge stag staggered from the brakeHeart-hit and perished. That wan wretch unhurtSoon bondless lay condoled. But the great Duke,Charmed with the eagle shot, admired the youth,There to him and his heirs forever gaveThe forest keepership.But envious tonguesWere soon at wag; and whispered went the taleOf how the shot was free, and that the ballsUsed by young Kuno were free bullets, whichMolded were cast in influence of the fiendBy magic and directed by the fiend.Of some effect these tales were and some forceHad with the Duke, who lent an ear so farAs to ordain Kuno's descendants allTo proof of skill ere their succession toThe father's office. Kurt himself hath shotThe silver ring from out the popinjay's beak—A good shot he, you see, who would succeed.The Devil guards his mysteries close as God.For who can say what elementariesDemoniac lurk in desolate dells and woodsShadowy? malicious vassals of that powerWho signs himself, thro' these, a slave to those,Those mortals who act open with his Hell,Those only who seek secretly and woo.Of these free, fatal bullets let me speak:There may be such; our Earth hath things as strange;Then only in coarse fancies may exist;For fancy is among our peasantryA limber juggler with the weird and dark;For Superstition hides not her grim face,A skeleton grin on leprous ghastliness,From Ignorance's mossy thatches low.A cross-way, as I heard, among gaunt hills,A solitude convulsed of rocks and treesBlasted; and on the stony cross-road drawnA bloody circle with a bloody sword;Herein rude characters; a skull and thighsFantastic fixed before a fitful fireOf spiteful coals. Eleven of the clockCast, the first bullet leaves the mold,—the leadMixed with three bullets that have hit their mark,Burnt blood,—the wounded Sacramental Host,Unswallowed and unhallowed, oozed when shotFixed to a riven pine.—Ere twelve o'clock,When dwindling specters in their rotting shroudsQuit musty tombs to mumble hollow woesIn Midnight's horrored ear, with never a cry,Word or weak whisper, till that hour sound,Must the free balls be cast; and these shall beIn number three and sixty; three of whichSemial—he the Devil's minister—Claims for his master and stamps as his ownTo hit awry their mark, askew for harm.Those other sixty shall not miss their mark.No cry, no word, no whisper, tho' there gibeMost monstrous shapes that flicker in thick mistLewd human countenances or leer outSwoln animal faces with fair forms of men,While wide-winged owls fan the drear, dying coals,That lick thin, slender tongues of purple fireFrom viperous red, and croaks the night-hawk near.No cry, no word, no whisper should there comeWeeping a wandering form with weary, whiteAnd pleading countenance of her you love,Faded with tears of waiting; beckoningWith gray, large arms or censuring; her shameIn dull and desolate eyes; who, if you speakOr stagger from that circle—hideous change!—Shrinks, faced a hag of million wrinkles, whichRidge scaly sharpness of protruding bones,To rip you limb from limb with taloned claws.Nor be deceived if some far midnight bellBoom that anticipated hour, nor leaveBy one short inch the bloody orbit, forThe minion varlets of Hell's majestyExpectant cirque its dim circumference.But when the hour of midnight smites, be sureYou have your bullets, neither more nor less;For, if thro' fear one more or less you have,Your soul is forfeit to those agencies,Right rathe who are to rend it from the flesh.And while that hour of midnight sounds a dinOf hurrying hoofs and shouting outriders—Six snorting steeds postilioned roll a stageBlack and with groaning wheels of spinning fire,"Room there!—ho! ho!—who bars the mountain-way!On over him!"—but fear not nor fare forth,—'Tis but the last trick of your bounden slave:And ere the red moon strives from dingy cloudsAnd dives again, high the huge leaders leapIron fore-hoofs flashing and big eyes like gledes,And, spun a spiral spark into the night,Whistling the phantom flies and fades away.Some say there comes no stage, but Hackelnburg,Wild Huntsman of the Harz, rides hoarse in storm,Dashing the dead leaves with dark dogs of hellDireful thro' whirling thickets, and his hornCroaks doleful as an owl's hoot while he hurlsStraight 'neath rain-streaming skies of echoes, sheerPlunging the magic circle horse and hounds.And then will come, plutonian clad and slim,Upon a stallion vast intensely black,Semial, Satan's lurid minister,To hail you and inform you and assure.—Enough! these wives-tales heard to what I've seen;To Ammendorf I came; and Rudolf thereWith Kurt and all his picturesque forestersMet me. And then the rounding year was ripe;Throbbing the red heart of full Autumn: WhenEach morning gleams crisp frost on shriveled fields;Each noon sits veiled in mysteries of mist;Each night unrolls a miracle woof of stars,Where moon—bare-bosomed goddess of the hunt—Wades calm, crushed clouds or treads the vaster blue.Then I proposed the season's hunt; till eveThe test of Rudolf's skill postponed, with whichAnnoyed he seemed. And so it was I heardHow he an execrable marksman was,And whispered tales of near, incredible shotsThat wryed their mark, while in his flint-lock's panFlashed often harmless powder, while wild gameStared fearless on him and indulgent stood,An open butt to such wide marksmanship.Howbeit, he that day acquitted himOf these maligners' cavils; in the huntMissing no shot however rash he madeOr distant thro' thick intercepting trees;And the piled, curious game brought down of allGood marksmen of that train had not sufficed,Doubled, nay, trebled, to have matched his heap.And wonderstruck thejägerssaw, nor knewHow to excuse them. My indulgence giv'n,Still swore that only yesterday old KurtHad touched his daughter's tears and Rudolf's wrathBy vowing end to their betrothéd love,Unless that love developed better aimAgainst the morrow's test; his ancestor'sHigh fame should not be damaged. So he stormed,But bowed his gray head and wept silently;Then looking up forgave when big he sawTears in his daughter's eyes and Rudolf goneForth in the night that wailed with coming storm.Before this inn, The Owl, assembled cameThe nice-primped villagers to view the trial:Fairfräuleinsand blonde, comely, healthyfraus;Stout burgers. And among them I did markKurt and his daughter. He, a florid faceOf pride and joy for Rudolf's strange success;She, radiant and flounced in flowing garbOf bridal white deep-draped and crowned with flowers;For Kurt insisted this their marriage eveShould Rudolf come successful from the chase.So pleased was I with what I'd seen him do,The test of skill superfluous seemed and soWas on the bare brink of announcement, when,Out of the evening heaven's hardening red,Like a white warning loosed for augury,A word of God some fallen angel prizedAs his last all of heaven, penitent,Hell-freed, sent minister to save a soul,A wild dove clove the luminous winds and there,A wafted waif, pruned settled on a bough:Then I, "Thy weapon, Rudolph, pierce its head!"Cried pointing, "And chief-forester art thou!"Pale as a mist and wavering he turned;"I had a dream—" then faltered as he aimed,"A woman's whim!" But starting from the pressScreamed Ilsabe, "My dove!" to plead its lifeCame—cracked the rifle and untouched the doveRose beating lustrous wings, but Ilsabe—"God's wrath! the sight!"—fell smitten, and the bloodSprang red from shattered brow and silent hair—That bullet strangely thro' her brow and brain....And what of Rudolf? ah! of him you ask?That proud Franconian who would scoff at FateAnd scorn all state; who cried black Satan friendSooner than our white Christ;—why, he went madO' the moment, and into the haunted HarzFled, an unholy thing, and perished thereThe prey of demons of the Dummburg. ButI one of few less superstitious whoSay, as the finale of a madman's deed,He in the Bodé, from that ragged rock,The Devil's Dancing Place, did leap and die.
A year thereafter was it that I heard
Of Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe,
Then their betrothal. And it was from this,—
For, ah, that Ilsabe! that Ilsabe!—
Good Mary Mother! how she haunts me yet!
She, that true touchstone which philosophers feign
Contacts and golds all base; a woman who
Could touch all evil into good in man.—
Surmised I of the excellency which
Refinement of her gentle company,
Warm presence of chaste beauty, had resolved
His fiery nature to, conditioning slave.
And so I came from Brunswick—as you know—
Is custom of the Duke or, by his seal
Commissioned proxy, his commissioner,—
To test the marksmanship of Rudolf who
Succeeded Kurt with marriage of his child,
An heir of Kuno.—He?—Great grandfather
Of Kurt, and one this forestkeepership
Was first possesor of; established thus—
Or such the tale they told me 'round the hearths.
Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train,
Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who came
With vast magnificence of knights and hounds,
And satin-tuniced nobles curled and plumed
To hunt Thuringian deer. Then Morn too slow
On her blithe feet was; quick with laughing eyes
To morrow mortal eyes and lazy limbs;
Rather on tip-toed hills recumbent yawned,
Aroused an hour too soon; ashamed, disrobed,
Rubbed the stiff sleep from eyes that still would close,
While brayed the hollow horns and bayed lean hounds,
And cheered gallants until the dingles dinned,
Where searched the climbing mists or, compact light,
Fled breathless white, clung scared a moted gray,
Low unsunned cloudlands of the castled hills.
And then near mid-noon from a swarthy brake
The ban-dogs roused a red gigantic stag,
Lashed to whose back with grinding knotted cords,
Borne with whom like a nightmare's incubus,
A man shrieked; burry-bearded and his hair
Kinked with dry, tangled burrs, and he himself
Emaciated and half naked. From
The wear of wildest passage thro' the wild,
Rent red by briars, torn and bruised by rocks.
—For, such the law then, when the peasant chased
Or slew the dun deer of his tyrant lords,
As punishment the torturing withes and spine
Of some big stag, a gift of game and wild
Enough till death—death in the antlered herd
Or crawling famine in bleak, haggard haunts.
Then was the dark Duke glad, and forthwith cried
To all his dewy train a rich reward
For him who slew the stag and saved the man,
But death to him who slew the man and stag,
The careless error of a loose attempt.
So crashed the hunt along wild, glimmering ways
Thro' creepers and vast brush beneath gnarled trees,
Up a scorched torrent's bed. Yet still refused
Each that sure shot; the risk too desperate
The poor life and the golden gift beside.
So this young Kuno with two eyes wherein
Hunt with excitement kindled reckless fire
Clamored, "And are ye cowards?—Good your grace,
You shall not chafe!—The fiend direct my ball!"
And fired into a covert deeply packed,
An intertangled wall of matted night,
Wherein the eye might vainly strive and strive
To pierce one foot or earn one point beyond.
But, ha! the huge stag staggered from the brake
Heart-hit and perished. That wan wretch unhurt
Soon bondless lay condoled. But the great Duke,
Charmed with the eagle shot, admired the youth,
There to him and his heirs forever gave
The forest keepership.
But envious tongues
Were soon at wag; and whispered went the tale
Of how the shot was free, and that the balls
Used by young Kuno were free bullets, which
Molded were cast in influence of the fiend
By magic and directed by the fiend.
Of some effect these tales were and some force
Had with the Duke, who lent an ear so far
As to ordain Kuno's descendants all
To proof of skill ere their succession to
The father's office. Kurt himself hath shot
The silver ring from out the popinjay's beak—
A good shot he, you see, who would succeed.
The Devil guards his mysteries close as God.
For who can say what elementaries
Demoniac lurk in desolate dells and woods
Shadowy? malicious vassals of that power
Who signs himself, thro' these, a slave to those,
Those mortals who act open with his Hell,
Those only who seek secretly and woo.
Of these free, fatal bullets let me speak:
There may be such; our Earth hath things as strange;
Then only in coarse fancies may exist;
For fancy is among our peasantry
A limber juggler with the weird and dark;
For Superstition hides not her grim face,
A skeleton grin on leprous ghastliness,
From Ignorance's mossy thatches low.
A cross-way, as I heard, among gaunt hills,
A solitude convulsed of rocks and trees
Blasted; and on the stony cross-road drawn
A bloody circle with a bloody sword;
Herein rude characters; a skull and thighs
Fantastic fixed before a fitful fire
Of spiteful coals. Eleven of the clock
Cast, the first bullet leaves the mold,—the lead
Mixed with three bullets that have hit their mark,
Burnt blood,—the wounded Sacramental Host,
Unswallowed and unhallowed, oozed when shot
Fixed to a riven pine.—Ere twelve o'clock,
When dwindling specters in their rotting shrouds
Quit musty tombs to mumble hollow woes
In Midnight's horrored ear, with never a cry,
Word or weak whisper, till that hour sound,
Must the free balls be cast; and these shall be
In number three and sixty; three of which
Semial—he the Devil's minister—
Claims for his master and stamps as his own
To hit awry their mark, askew for harm.
Those other sixty shall not miss their mark.
No cry, no word, no whisper, tho' there gibe
Most monstrous shapes that flicker in thick mist
Lewd human countenances or leer out
Swoln animal faces with fair forms of men,
While wide-winged owls fan the drear, dying coals,
That lick thin, slender tongues of purple fire
From viperous red, and croaks the night-hawk near.
No cry, no word, no whisper should there come
Weeping a wandering form with weary, white
And pleading countenance of her you love,
Faded with tears of waiting; beckoning
With gray, large arms or censuring; her shame
In dull and desolate eyes; who, if you speak
Or stagger from that circle—hideous change!—
Shrinks, faced a hag of million wrinkles, which
Ridge scaly sharpness of protruding bones,
To rip you limb from limb with taloned claws.
Nor be deceived if some far midnight bell
Boom that anticipated hour, nor leave
By one short inch the bloody orbit, for
The minion varlets of Hell's majesty
Expectant cirque its dim circumference.
But when the hour of midnight smites, be sure
You have your bullets, neither more nor less;
For, if thro' fear one more or less you have,
Your soul is forfeit to those agencies,
Right rathe who are to rend it from the flesh.
And while that hour of midnight sounds a din
Of hurrying hoofs and shouting outriders—
Six snorting steeds postilioned roll a stage
Black and with groaning wheels of spinning fire,
"Room there!—ho! ho!—who bars the mountain-way!
On over him!"—but fear not nor fare forth,—
'Tis but the last trick of your bounden slave:
And ere the red moon strives from dingy clouds
And dives again, high the huge leaders leap
Iron fore-hoofs flashing and big eyes like gledes,
And, spun a spiral spark into the night,
Whistling the phantom flies and fades away.
Some say there comes no stage, but Hackelnburg,
Wild Huntsman of the Harz, rides hoarse in storm,
Dashing the dead leaves with dark dogs of hell
Direful thro' whirling thickets, and his horn
Croaks doleful as an owl's hoot while he hurls
Straight 'neath rain-streaming skies of echoes, sheer
Plunging the magic circle horse and hounds.
And then will come, plutonian clad and slim,
Upon a stallion vast intensely black,
Semial, Satan's lurid minister,
To hail you and inform you and assure.—
Enough! these wives-tales heard to what I've seen;
To Ammendorf I came; and Rudolf there
With Kurt and all his picturesque foresters
Met me. And then the rounding year was ripe;
Throbbing the red heart of full Autumn: When
Each morning gleams crisp frost on shriveled fields;
Each noon sits veiled in mysteries of mist;
Each night unrolls a miracle woof of stars,
Where moon—bare-bosomed goddess of the hunt—
Wades calm, crushed clouds or treads the vaster blue.
Then I proposed the season's hunt; till eve
The test of Rudolf's skill postponed, with which
Annoyed he seemed. And so it was I heard
How he an execrable marksman was,
And whispered tales of near, incredible shots
That wryed their mark, while in his flint-lock's pan
Flashed often harmless powder, while wild game
Stared fearless on him and indulgent stood,
An open butt to such wide marksmanship.
Howbeit, he that day acquitted him
Of these maligners' cavils; in the hunt
Missing no shot however rash he made
Or distant thro' thick intercepting trees;
And the piled, curious game brought down of all
Good marksmen of that train had not sufficed,
Doubled, nay, trebled, to have matched his heap.
And wonderstruck thejägerssaw, nor knew
How to excuse them. My indulgence giv'n,
Still swore that only yesterday old Kurt
Had touched his daughter's tears and Rudolf's wrath
By vowing end to their betrothéd love,
Unless that love developed better aim
Against the morrow's test; his ancestor's
High fame should not be damaged. So he stormed,
But bowed his gray head and wept silently;
Then looking up forgave when big he saw
Tears in his daughter's eyes and Rudolf gone
Forth in the night that wailed with coming storm.
Before this inn, The Owl, assembled came
The nice-primped villagers to view the trial:
Fairfräuleinsand blonde, comely, healthyfraus;
Stout burgers. And among them I did mark
Kurt and his daughter. He, a florid face
Of pride and joy for Rudolf's strange success;
She, radiant and flounced in flowing garb
Of bridal white deep-draped and crowned with flowers;
For Kurt insisted this their marriage eve
Should Rudolf come successful from the chase.
So pleased was I with what I'd seen him do,
The test of skill superfluous seemed and so
Was on the bare brink of announcement, when,
Out of the evening heaven's hardening red,
Like a white warning loosed for augury,
A word of God some fallen angel prized
As his last all of heaven, penitent,
Hell-freed, sent minister to save a soul,
A wild dove clove the luminous winds and there,
A wafted waif, pruned settled on a bough:
Then I, "Thy weapon, Rudolph, pierce its head!"
Cried pointing, "And chief-forester art thou!"
Pale as a mist and wavering he turned;
"I had a dream—" then faltered as he aimed,
"A woman's whim!" But starting from the press
Screamed Ilsabe, "My dove!" to plead its life
Came—cracked the rifle and untouched the dove
Rose beating lustrous wings, but Ilsabe—
"God's wrath! the sight!"—fell smitten, and the blood
Sprang red from shattered brow and silent hair—
That bullet strangely thro' her brow and brain....
And what of Rudolf? ah! of him you ask?
That proud Franconian who would scoff at Fate
And scorn all state; who cried black Satan friend
Sooner than our white Christ;—why, he went mad
O' the moment, and into the haunted Harz
Fled, an unholy thing, and perished there
The prey of demons of the Dummburg. But
I one of few less superstitious who
Say, as the finale of a madman's deed,
He in the Bodé, from that ragged rock,
The Devil's Dancing Place, did leap and die.