SCENE III.

Would'st thou, too, be a poet?

WALTER.

Lady! ay!A passion has grown up to be a King,Ruling my being with as fierce a swayAs the mad sun the prostrate desert sands,And it isthat.

LADY.

Hast some great cherished theme?

WALTER.

Lovely in God's eyes, where, in barren space,Like a rich jewel hangs His universe,Unwrinkled as a dew-drop, and as fair,In my poor eyes, my loved and chosen themeIs lovely as the universe in His.

LADY.

Wilt write of some young wanton of an isleWhose beauty so enamoured hath the sea,It clasps it ever in its summer armsAnd wastes itself away on it in kisses?Or the hot Indes, on whose teeming plainsThe seasons four knit in one flowery bandAre dancing ever? Or some older realm?

WALTER.

I will begin in the oldest; far in God.When all the ages, and all suns, and worlds,And souls of men and angels, lay in HimLike unborn forests in an acorn cup.

LADY.

And how wilt thou begin it?

WALTER.

With old words!With the soliloquy with which God brokeThe silence of the dead eternities.At which most ancient words, O beautiful!With showery tresses like a child from sleep,Uprose the splendid-mooned and jewelled night,—The loveliest born of God.

LADY.

Then your first chorusMust be the shoutings of the morning stars!What martial music is to marching menShould Song be to Humanity. In songThe infant ages born and swathèd are.A beauteous menial to our wants divine,A shape celestial tending the dark earthWith light and silver service like the moon,Is Poesy; ever remember this—How wilt thou end it?

WALTER.

With God and Silence!When the great universe subsides in God,Ev'n as a moment's foam subsides againUpon the wave that bears it.

LADY.

Why, thy planIs wide and daring as a comet's path!And doubtless 'twill contain the tale of earthBy way of episode or anecdote.This precious world which one pale marrèd faceDropt tears upon. This base and beggar worldTo your rich soul! O! Marc Anthony,With a fine scorn did toss your world awayFor Cleopatra's lips!—so rich, so poor.

Antique Room.Walterpacing up and down.

WALTER.

Thou day beyond to-morrow! though my lifeShould cease in thee, I'd dash aside the hoursThat intervene to bring thee quicklier here.Again to meet her in the windy woods!When last we met she was as marble, calm:I, with thick-beating heart and sight grown dim,And leaping pulses and loud-ringing ears,And tell-tale blood that rushed into my face,And blabbed the love secreted in my heart.She must have understood that crimson speech,And yet she frowned not. No, she never frownedI think that I am worthy to be loved.Oh, could I lift my heart into her sight,As an old mountain lifts its martyr's cairnInto the pure sight of the holy heavens!Would she but love me, I would live for her!Were she plain Night, I'd clothe her with my stars.My spirit, Poesy, would be her slave,'Twould rifle for her ocean's secret hoards,And make her rough with pearls. If Death's pale realmsContained a gem out-lust'ring all the world,I would adventure there, and bring it her.My inmost being dwells upon her words,"Wilt trim a verse for me by this night week?Make it as jubilant as marriage bells;Or, if it please you, make it doleful sadAs bells that knoll a maiden to her grave,When the spring earth is sweet in violets,And it will fitoneheart, yea, as the cryOf the lone plover fits a dismal heath."I'll write a tale through which my passion runs,Like honeysuckle through a hedge of June.A silent isle on which the love-sick seaDies with faint kisses and a murmured joy,In the clear blue the lark hangs like a speck,And empties his full heart of music-rainO'er sunny slopes, where tender lambkins bleat,And new-born rills go laughing to the sea,O'er woods that smooth down to the southern shore,Waving in green, as the young breezes blowO'er the sea sphere all sweet and summer smells.Not of these years, but by-gone minstrel times,Of shepherd-days in the young world's sunrise,Was this warm clime, this quiet land of health,By gentle pagans filled, whose red blood ranHealthy and cool as milk,—pure, simple men:Ah, how unlike the swelterers in towns!Who ne'er can glad their eyes upon the greenSunshine-swathed earth; nor hear the singing rills,Nor feel the breezes in their lifted hair.A lovely youth, in manhood's very edge,Lived 'mong these shepherds and their quiet downs;Tall and blue-eyed, and bright in golden hair,With half-shut dreamy eyes, sweet earnest eyes,That seemed unoccupied with outward things,Feeding on something richer! Strangely, oft,A wildered smile lay on his noble lips.The sunburnt shepherds stared with awful eyesAs he went past; and timid girls upstole,With wond'ring looks, to gaze upon his face,And on his cataract of golden curls,Then lonely grew, and went into the woodsTo think sweet thoughts, and marvel why they shookWith heart-beat and with tremor when he came,And in the night he filled their dreams with joy.But there was one among that soft-voiced bandWho pined away for love of his sweet eyes,And died among the roses of the spring.When Eve sat in the dew with closèd lids,Came gentle maidens bearing forest flowersTo strew upon her green and quiet grave.They soothed the dead with love-songs low and sweet;Songs sung of old beneath the purple night,Songs heard on earth with heart-beat and a blush,Songs heard in heaven by the breathless stars.Thought-wrapt, he wandered in the breezy woodsIn which the Summer, like a hermit, dwelt.He laid him down by the old haunted springs,Up-bubbling 'mid a world of greenery,Shut-eyed, and dreaming of the fairest shapesThat roam the woods; and when the autumn nightsWere dark and moonless, to the level sandsHe would betake him, there to hear, o'er-awed,The old Sea moaning like a monster pained.One day he lay within the pleasant woodsOn bed of flowers edging a fountain's brim,And gazed into its heart as if to countThe veined and lucid pebbles one by one,Up-shining richly through the crystal clear.Thus lay he many hours, when, lo! he heardA maiden singing in the woods aloneA sad and tender island melody,Which made a golden conquest of his soul,Bringing a sadness sweeter than delight.As nightingale, embowered in vernal leaves,Pants out her gladness the luxurious night,The moon and stars all hanging on her song,She poured her soul in music. When she ceased,The charmèd woods and breezes silent stood,As if all ear to catch her voice again.Uprose the dreamer from his couch of flowers,With awful expectation in his look,And happy tears upon his pallid face,With eager steps, as if toward a heaven,He onward went, and, lo! he saw her stand,Fairer than Dian, in the forest glade.His footsteps startled her, and quick she turnedHer face,—looks met like swords. He clasped his hands,And fell upon his knees; the while there brokeA sudden splendour o'er his yearning face;'Twas a pale prayer in its very self."I know thee, lovely maiden!" then he cried;"I know thee, and of thee I have been told:Been told by all the roses of the vale,By hermit streams, by pale sea-setting stars,And by the roaring of the storm-tost pines;And I have sought for thee upon the hills,In dim sweet dreams, on the complacent sea,When breathless midnight, with her thousand hearts,Beats to the same love-tune as my own heart.I've waited for thee many seasons through,Seen many autumns shed their yellow leavesO'er the oak-roots, heard many winters moanThrough the leafless forests drearily.Now am I joyful, as storm-battered doveThat finds a perch in the Hesperides,For thou art found. Thou, whom I long have sought,My other self! Our blood, our hearts, our souls,Shall henceforth mingle in one being, likeThe married colours in the bow of heaven.My soul is like a wide and empty fane,Sit thou in 't like a god, O maid divine!With worship and religion 'twill be filled.My soul is empty, lorn, and hungry space;Leap thou into it like a new-born star,And 'twill o'erflow with splendour and with bliss.More music! music! music! maid divine!My hungry senses, like a finch's brood,Are all a-gape. O feed them, maid divine!Feed, feed my hungry soul with melodies!"Thus, like a worshipper before a shrine,He earnest syllabled, and, rising up,He led that lovely stranger tenderlyThrough the green forest toward the burning west.He never, by the maidens of the isleNor by the shepherds, was thereafter seen'Mong sunrise splendours on the misty hills,Or stretched at noon by the old haunted wells,Or by the level sands on autumn nights.I've heard that maidens have been won by song.O Poesy, fine sprite! I'd bless thee moreIf thou would'st bring that lady's love to me,Than immortality in twenty worlds.I'd rather win her than God's youngest star,With singing continents and seas of bliss.——Thou day beyond to-morrow, haste thee on!

My inmost being dwells upon her words,"Wilt trim a verse for me by this night week?Make it as jubilant as marriage bells;Or, if it please you, make it doleful sadAs bells that knoll a maiden to her grave,When the spring earth is sweet in violets,And it will fitoneheart, yea, as the cryOf the lone plover fits a dismal heath."I'll write a tale through which my passion runs,Like honeysuckle through a hedge of June.

A silent isle on which the love-sick seaDies with faint kisses and a murmured joy,In the clear blue the lark hangs like a speck,And empties his full heart of music-rainO'er sunny slopes, where tender lambkins bleat,And new-born rills go laughing to the sea,O'er woods that smooth down to the southern shore,Waving in green, as the young breezes blowO'er the sea sphere all sweet and summer smells.Not of these years, but by-gone minstrel times,Of shepherd-days in the young world's sunrise,Was this warm clime, this quiet land of health,By gentle pagans filled, whose red blood ranHealthy and cool as milk,—pure, simple men:Ah, how unlike the swelterers in towns!Who ne'er can glad their eyes upon the greenSunshine-swathed earth; nor hear the singing rills,Nor feel the breezes in their lifted hair.

A lovely youth, in manhood's very edge,Lived 'mong these shepherds and their quiet downs;Tall and blue-eyed, and bright in golden hair,With half-shut dreamy eyes, sweet earnest eyes,That seemed unoccupied with outward things,Feeding on something richer! Strangely, oft,A wildered smile lay on his noble lips.The sunburnt shepherds stared with awful eyesAs he went past; and timid girls upstole,With wond'ring looks, to gaze upon his face,And on his cataract of golden curls,Then lonely grew, and went into the woodsTo think sweet thoughts, and marvel why they shookWith heart-beat and with tremor when he came,And in the night he filled their dreams with joy.But there was one among that soft-voiced bandWho pined away for love of his sweet eyes,And died among the roses of the spring.When Eve sat in the dew with closèd lids,Came gentle maidens bearing forest flowersTo strew upon her green and quiet grave.They soothed the dead with love-songs low and sweet;Songs sung of old beneath the purple night,Songs heard on earth with heart-beat and a blush,Songs heard in heaven by the breathless stars.

Thought-wrapt, he wandered in the breezy woodsIn which the Summer, like a hermit, dwelt.He laid him down by the old haunted springs,Up-bubbling 'mid a world of greenery,Shut-eyed, and dreaming of the fairest shapesThat roam the woods; and when the autumn nightsWere dark and moonless, to the level sandsHe would betake him, there to hear, o'er-awed,The old Sea moaning like a monster pained.

One day he lay within the pleasant woodsOn bed of flowers edging a fountain's brim,And gazed into its heart as if to countThe veined and lucid pebbles one by one,Up-shining richly through the crystal clear.Thus lay he many hours, when, lo! he heardA maiden singing in the woods aloneA sad and tender island melody,Which made a golden conquest of his soul,Bringing a sadness sweeter than delight.As nightingale, embowered in vernal leaves,Pants out her gladness the luxurious night,The moon and stars all hanging on her song,She poured her soul in music. When she ceased,The charmèd woods and breezes silent stood,As if all ear to catch her voice again.Uprose the dreamer from his couch of flowers,With awful expectation in his look,And happy tears upon his pallid face,With eager steps, as if toward a heaven,He onward went, and, lo! he saw her stand,Fairer than Dian, in the forest glade.His footsteps startled her, and quick she turnedHer face,—looks met like swords. He clasped his hands,And fell upon his knees; the while there brokeA sudden splendour o'er his yearning face;'Twas a pale prayer in its very self."I know thee, lovely maiden!" then he cried;"I know thee, and of thee I have been told:Been told by all the roses of the vale,By hermit streams, by pale sea-setting stars,And by the roaring of the storm-tost pines;And I have sought for thee upon the hills,In dim sweet dreams, on the complacent sea,When breathless midnight, with her thousand hearts,Beats to the same love-tune as my own heart.I've waited for thee many seasons through,Seen many autumns shed their yellow leavesO'er the oak-roots, heard many winters moanThrough the leafless forests drearily.Now am I joyful, as storm-battered doveThat finds a perch in the Hesperides,For thou art found. Thou, whom I long have sought,My other self! Our blood, our hearts, our souls,Shall henceforth mingle in one being, likeThe married colours in the bow of heaven.My soul is like a wide and empty fane,Sit thou in 't like a god, O maid divine!With worship and religion 'twill be filled.My soul is empty, lorn, and hungry space;Leap thou into it like a new-born star,And 'twill o'erflow with splendour and with bliss.More music! music! music! maid divine!My hungry senses, like a finch's brood,Are all a-gape. O feed them, maid divine!Feed, feed my hungry soul with melodies!"Thus, like a worshipper before a shrine,He earnest syllabled, and, rising up,He led that lovely stranger tenderlyThrough the green forest toward the burning west.He never, by the maidens of the isleNor by the shepherds, was thereafter seen'Mong sunrise splendours on the misty hills,Or stretched at noon by the old haunted wells,Or by the level sands on autumn nights.

I've heard that maidens have been won by song.O Poesy, fine sprite! I'd bless thee moreIf thou would'st bring that lady's love to me,Than immortality in twenty worlds.I'd rather win her than God's youngest star,With singing continents and seas of bliss.——Thou day beyond to-morrow, haste thee on!

The Banks of a River.—Walterand theLady.

LADY.

The stream of sunsets?

WALTER.

'Tis that loveliest stream.I've learned by heart its sweet and devious courseBy frequent tracing, as a lover learnsThe features of his best-beloved's face.In memory it runs, a shining thread,With sunsets strung upon it thick, like pearls.From yonder trees I've seen the western skyAll washed with fire, while, in the midst, the sunBeat like a pulse, welling at ev'ry beatA spreading wave of light. Where yonder churchStands up to heaven, as if to intercedeFor sinful hamlets scattered at its feet,I saw the dreariest sight. The sun was down,And all the west was paved with sullen fire.I cried, "Behold! the barren beach of hellAt ebb of tide." The ghost of one bright hourComes from its grave and stands before me now.'Twas at the close of a long summer day,As we were sitting on yon grassy slope,The sunset hung before us like a dreamThat shakes a demon in his fiery lair;The clouds were standing round the setting sunLike gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles,Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light,Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame,Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaksOf pilèd gorgeousness, and rocks of fireA-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas,All these were huddled in that dreadful west,All shook and trembled in unsteadfast light,And from the centre blazed the angry sun,Stern as the unlashed eye of God a-glareO'er evening city with its boom of sin.I do remember, as we journeyed home,(That dreadful sunset burnt into our brains),With what a soothing came the naked moon.She, like a swimmer who has found his ground,Came rippling up a silver strand of cloud,And plunged from the other side into the night.I and that friend, the feeder of my soul,Did wander up and down these banks for years,Talking of blessed hopes and holy faiths,How sin and weeping all should pass awayIn the calm sunshine of the earth's old age.Breezes are blowing in old Chaucer's verse,'Twas here we drank them. Here for hours we hungO'er the fine pants and trembles of a line.Oft, standing on a hill's green head, we feltBreezes of love, and joy, and melody,Blow through us, as the winds blow through the sky.Oft with our souls in our eyes all day we fedOn summer landscapes, silver-veined with streams,O'er which the air hung silent in its joy—With a great city lying in its smoke,A monster sleeping in its own thick breath;And surgy plains of wheat, and ancient woods,In the calm evenings cawed by clouds of rooks,Acres of moss, and long black strips of firs,And sweet cots dropt in green, where children playedTo us unheard, till, gradual, all was lostIn distance-haze to a blue rim of hills,Upon whose heads came down the closing sky.Beneath the crescent moon on autumn nightsWe paced its banks with overflowing hearts,Discoursing long of great thought-wealthy souls,And with what spendthrift hands they scatter wideTheir spirit-wealth, making mankind their debtors:Affluent spirits, dropt from the teeming stars,Who come before their time, are starved, and die,Like swallows that arrive before the summer.Or haply talked of dearer personal themes,Blind guesses at each other's after fate;Feeling our leaping hearts, we marvelled oftHow they should be unleashed, and have free courseTo stretch and strain far down the coming time—But in our guesses never was thegrave.

LADY.

The tale! the tale! the tale! As empty hallsGape for a coming pageant, my fond earsTo take its music are all eager-wide.

WALTER.

Within yon grove of beeches is a well,I've made a vow to read it only there.

LADY.

As I suppose, by way of recompense,For quenching thirst on some hot summer day.

WALTER.

Memories grow around it thick as flowThat well is loved and haunted by a star.The live-long day her clear and patient eyeIs open on the soft and bending blue,Just where she lost her lover in the morn.But with the night the star creeps o'er the treesAnd smiles upon her, and some happy hoursShe holds his image in her crystal heart.Beside that well I read the mighty BardWho clad himself with beauty, genius, wealth,Then flung himself on his own passion-pyreAnd was consumed. Beside that lucid wellThe whitest lilies grow for many miles.'Tis said that, 'mong the flowers of perished years,A prince woo'd here a lady of the land,And when with faltering lips he told his love,Into her proud face leapt her prouder blood;She struck him blind with scorn, then with an airAs if she wore the crowns of all the world,She swept right on and left him in the dew.Again he sat at even with his love,He sent a song into her haughty earsTo plead for him;—she listened, still he sang.Tears, drawn by music, were upon her face,Till on its trembling close, to which she clungLike dying wretch to life, with a low cryShe flung her arms around him, told her love,And how she long had loved him, but had keptIt in her heart, like one who has a gemAnd hoards it up in some most secret place,While he who owns it seeks it and with tears.Won by the sweet omnipotence of song!He gave her lands! she paid him with herself.Brow-bound with gold she sat, the fairest thingWithin his sea-washed shores.

LADY.

Most fit reward!A poet's love should ever thus be paid.

WALTER.

Ha! Dost thou think so?

LADY.

Yes. The tale! the tale!

WALTER.

On balcony, all summer roofed with vines,A lady half-reclined amid the light,Golden and green, soft-showering through the leaves,Silent she sat one-half the silent noon;At last she sank luxurious in her couch,Purple and golden-fringèd, like the sun's,And stretched her white arms on the warmèd air,As if to take some object wherewithalTo ease the empty aching of her heart."Oh, what a weariness of life is mine!"The lady said, "soothing myself to sleepWith my own lute, floating about the lakeTo feed my swans; with nought to stir my blood,Unless I scold my women thrice a-day.Unwrought yet in the tapestry of my lifeAre princely suitors kneeling evermore.I, in my beauty, standing in the midst,Touching them, careless, with most stately eyes.Oh, I could love, methinks, with all my soul!But I see nought to love; nought save some scoreOf lisping, curl'd gallants, with words i' their mouthsSoft as their mothers' milk. Oh, empty heart!Oh, palace, rich and purple-chambered!When will thy lord come home?"When the grey morn was groping 'bout the eastThe Earl went trooping forth to chase the stag;I trust he hath not, to the sport he lovesBetter than ale-bouts, ta'en my cub of Ind.My sweetest plaything. He is bright and wildAs is a gleaming panther of the hills,—Lovely as lightning, beautiful as wild!His sports and laughters are with fierceness edged;There's something in his beauty all untamed,As I were toying with a naked sword,Which starts within my veins the blood of earls.I fain would have the service of his voiceTo kill with music this most languid noon."She rang a silver bell: with downcast eyesThe tawny nursling of the Indian sunStood at her feet. "I pr'ythee, Leopard, sing;Give me some stormy song of sword and lance,Which, rushing upward from a hero's heart,Straight rose upon a hundred leaguered hills,Ragged and wild as pyramid of flame.Or, better, sing some hungry lay of loveLike that you sang me on the eve you toldHow poor our English to your Indian darks;Shaken from od'rous hills, what tender smellsPass like fine pulses through the mellow nights;The purple ether that embathes the moon,—Your large round moon, more beautiful than ours;Your showers of stars, each hanging luminous,Like golden dewdrops in the Indian air.""I know a song, born in the heart of love,Its sweetest sweet, steeped ere the close in tears.'Twas sung into the cold ears of the starsBeside the murmured margent of the sea.'Tis of two lovers, matched like cymbals fine,Who, in a moment of luxurious blood,Their pale lips trembling in the kiss of gods,Made their lives wine-cups, and then drank them off,And died with beings full-blown like a rose;A mighty heart-pant bore them like a wave,And flung them, flowers, upon the next world's strand.Night the solemn, night the starry,'Mong the oak-trees old and gnarry;By the sea-shore and the ships,'Neath the stars I sat with Clari;Her silken bodice was unlaced,My arm was trembling round her waist,I plucked the joys upon her lips;Joys that plucked still grow again!Canst thou say the same, old Night?Ha! thy life is vain.Oh, that death would let me tarryLike a dewdrop on a flower,Ever on those lips of Clari!Our beings mellow, then they fall,Like o'er-ripe peaches from the wall;We ripen, drop, and all is o'er;On the cold grave weeps the rain;I weep it should be so, old Night.Ah! my tears are vain.Night the solemn, night the starry,Say, alas! that years should harryGloss from life and joy from lips,Love-lustre from the eyes of Clari!Moon! that walkest the blue deep,Like naked maiden in her sleep;Star! whose pallid splendour dipsIn the ghost-waves of the main.Oh, ye hear me not! old Night,My tears and cries are vain."He ceased to sing; queenly the lady lay,One white hand hidden in a golden shoalOf ringlets, reeling down upon her couch,And heaving on the heavings of her breast,The while the thoughts rose in her eyes like stars,Rising and setting in the blue of night."I had a cousin once," the lady said,"Who brooding sat, a melancholy owl,Among the twilight-branches of his thoughts.He was a rhymer, and great knights he spoiled,And damsels saved, and giants slew—in verse.He died in youth; his heart held a dead hope,As holds the wretched west the sunset's corpse:He went to his grave, nor told what man he was.He was unlanguaged, like the earnest sea,Which strives to gain an utterance on the shore,But ne'er can shape unto the listening hillsThe lore it gathered in its awful age;The crime for which 'tis lashed by cruel winds;The thought, pain, grief, within its labouring breast.To fledge with music, wings of heavy noon,I'll sing some verses that he sent to me:—Where the west has sunset-bloomed,Where a hero's heart is tombed,Where a thunder-cloud has gloomed,Seen, becomes a part of me.Flowers and rills live sunnilyIn gardens of my memory.Through its walks and leafy lanes,Float fair shapes 'mong sunlight rains;Blood is running in their veins.One, a queenly maiden fair,Sweepeth past me with an air,Kings might kneel beneath her stare.Round her heart, a rosebud free,Reeled I, like a drunken bee;Alas! it would not ope to me.One comes shining like a saint,But her face I cannot paint,For mine eyes and blood grow faint.Eyes are dimmed as by a tear,Sounds are ringing in mine ear,I feel only, she is here,That she laugheth where she stands,That she mocketh with her hands;I am bound in tighter bands.Laid 'mong faintest blooms is one,Singing in the setting sun,And her song is never done.She was born 'mong water-mills;She grew up 'mong flowers and rills,In the hearts of distant hills.There, into her being stoleNature, and embued the whole,And illumed her face and soul.She grew fairer than her peers;Still her gentle forehead wearsHoly lights of infant years.Her blue eyes, so mild and meek,She uplifteth, when I speak,Lo! the blushes mount her cheek.Weary I of pride and jest,In this rich heart I would rest,Purple and love-linèd nest."My dazzling panther of the smoking hills,When the hot sun hath touched their loads of dew,What strange eyes had my cousin, who could thus(For you must know I am the first o' the threeThat pace the gardens of his memory)Prefer before the daughter of great earls,This giglot, shining in her golden hair,Haunting him like a gleam or happy thought;Or her, the last, up whose cheeks blushes wentAs thick and frequent as the streamers passUp cold December nights. True, she might beA dainty partner in the game of lips,Sweet'ning the honeymoon; but what, alas!When redhot youth cools down to iron man?Could her white fingers close a helmet up,And send her lord unkissed away to field,Her heart striking with his arm in every blow?Would joy rush through her spirit like a stream,When to her lips he came with victory back:Acclaims and blessings on his head like crowns,His mouthèd wounds brave trumpets in his praise,Drawing huge shoals of people, like the moon,Whose beauty draws the solemn-noisèd seas?Or would his bright and lovely sanguine-stainsScare all the coward blood into her heart,Leaving her cheeks as pale as lily leaves?And at his great step would she quail and faint,And pay his seeking arms with bloodless swoon?My heart would leap to greet such coming lord,Eager to meet him, tiptoe on my lips.""This cousin loved the Lady Constance; didThe Lady Constance love her cousin, too?""Ay, as a cousin. He woo'd me, Leopard mine,I speared him with a jest; for there are menWhose sinews stiffen 'gainst a knitted brow,Yet are unthreaded, loosened by a sneer,And their resolve doth pass as doth a wave:Of this sort was my cousin. I saw him once,Adown a pleachèd alley, in the sun,Two gorgeous peacocks pecking from his hand;At sight of me he first turned red, then pale.I laughed and said, 'I saw a misery perchedI' the melancholy corners of his mouth,Like griffins on each side my father's gates.'And, 'That by sighing he would win my heart,Somewhere as soon as he could hug the earth,And crack its golden ribs.' A week the boyDwelt in his sorrow, like a cataractUnseen, yet sounding through its shrouding mists.Strange likings, too, this cousin had of mine.A frail cloud trailing o'er the midnight moon,Was lovelier sight than wounded boar a-foamAmong the yelping dogs. He'd lie in fields,And through his fingers watch the changing clouds,Those playful fancies of the mighty sky,With deeper interest than a lady's face.He had no heart to grasp the fleeting hour,Which, like a thief, steals by with silent foot,In his closed hand the jewel of a life.He scarce would match this throned and kingdom'd earthAgainst a dew drop."Who'd leap into the chariot of my heart,And seize the reins, and wind it to his will,Must be of other stuff, my cub of Ind;White honour shall be like a plaything to him,Borne lightly, a pet falcon on his wrist;One who can feel the very pulse o' the time,Instant to act, to plunge into the strife,And with a strong arm hold the rearing world.In costly chambers hushed with carpets rich,Swept by proud beauties in their whistling silks,Mars' plait shall smooth to sweetness on his brow;His mighty front whose steel flung back the sun,When horsed for battle, shall bend above a handLaid like a lily in his tawny palm,With such a grace as takes the gazer's eye.His voice that shivered the mad trumpet's blare,—A new-raised standard to the reeling field,—Shall know to tremble at a lady's ear,To charm her blood with the fine touch of praise,And as she listens—steal away the heart.If the good gods do grant me such a man,More would I dote upon his trenchèd brows,His coal-black hair, proud eyes, and scornful lips,Than on a gallant, curled like Absalom,Cheek'd like Apollo, with his luted voice."Canst tell me, Sir Dark-eyes,Is 't true what these strange-thoughted poets say,That hearts are tangled in a golden smile?That brave cheeks pale before a queenly brow?That mail'd knees bend beneath a lighted eye?That trickling tears are deadlier than swords?That with our full-mooned beauty we can slaveSpirits that walk time, like the travelling sun,With sunset glories girt around his loins?That love can thrive upon such dainty foodAs sweet words, showering from a rosy lip,As sighs, and smiles, and tears, and kisses warm?"The dark Page lifted up his Indian eyesTo that bright face, and saw it all a-smile;And then half grave, half jestingly, he said,—"The devil fisheth best for souls of menWhen his hook is baited with a lovely limb;Love lights upon the heart, and straight we feelMore worlds of wealth gleam in an upturned eye,Than in the rich heart of the miser sea.Beauty hath made our greatest manhoods weak.There have been men who chafed, leapt on their times,And reined them in as gallants rein their steedsTo curvetings, to show their sweep of limb;Yet love hath on their broad brows written 'fool.'Sages, with passions held in leash like hounds;Grave Doctors, tilting with a lance of lightIn lists of argument, have knelt and sighedMost plethoric sighs, and been but very men;Stern hearts, close barred against a wanton world,Have had their gates burst open by a kiss.Why, there was one who might have topped all men,Who bartered joyously for a single smileThis empired planet with its load of crowns,And thought himself enriched. If ye are fair,Mankind will crowd around you thick as whenThe full-faced moon sits silver on the sea,The eager waves lift up their gleaming heads,Each shouldering for her smile."The lady dowered him with her richest look,Her arch head half aside, her liquid eyes,From 'neath their dim lids drooping slumberous,Stood full on his, and called the wild blood upAll in a tumult to his sun-kissed cheek,As if it wished to see her beauty too—Then asked in dulcet tones, "Dost thinkmefair?""Oh, thou art fairer than an Indian morn,Seated in her sheen palace of the east.Thy faintest smile out-prices the swelled wombsOf fleets, rich-glutted, toiling wearilyTo vomit all their wealth on English strands.The whiteness of this hand should ne'er receiveA poorer greeting than the kiss of kings;And on thy happy lips doth sit a joy,Fuller than any gathered by the gods,In all the rich range of their golden heaven.""Now, by my mother's white enskied soul!"The lady cried, 'twixt laugh and blush the while,"I'll swear thou'st been in love, my Indian sweet.Thy spirit on another breaks in joy,Like the pleased sea on a white-breasted shore—That blush tells tales. And now, I swear by allThe well-washed jewels strewn on fathom-sands,That thou dost keep her looks, her words, her sighs,Her laughs, her tears, her angers, and her frowns,Balmed between memory's leaves; and ev'ry dayDost count them o'er and o'er in solitude,As pious monks count o'er their rosaries.Now, tell me, did she give thee love for love?Or didst thou make Midnight thy confidant,Telling her all about thy lady's eyes,How rich her cheek, how cold as death her scorn?My lustrous Leopard, hast thou been in love?"The Page's dark face flushed the hue of wineIn crystal goblet stricken by the sun;His soul stood like a moon within his eyes,Suddenly orbed; his passionate voice was shookBy trembling into music.—"Thee I love.""Thou!" and the Lady, with a cruel laugh,(Each silver throb went through him like a sword,)Flung herself back upon her fringèd couch.From which she rose upon him like a queen,She rose and stabbed him with her angry eyes."'Tis well my father did not hear thee, boy,Or else my pretty plaything of an hourMight have gone sleep to-night without his head,And I might waste rich tears upon his fate.I would not have my sweetest plaything hurt.Dost think to scorch me with those blazing eyes,My fierce and lightning-blooded cub o' the sun?Thy blood is up in riot on thy brow,I' the face o' its monarch. Peace! By my grey sire,Now could I slay thee with one look of hate,One single look! My Hero! my Heart-god!My dusk Hyperion, Bacchus of the Inds!My Hercules, with chin as smooth as my own!I am so sorry maid, I cannot wearThis great and proffered jewel of thy love.Thou art too bold, methinks! Didst never fearThat on my poor deserts thy love would sitLike a great diamond on a threadbare robe?I tremble for 't. I pr'ythee, come to-morrowAnd I will pasture you upon my lipsUntil thy beard be grown. Go now, sir, go."As thence she waved him with arm-sweep superb,The light of scorn was cold within her eyes,And withered his bloom'd heart, which, like a rose,Had opened, timid, to the noon of love.The lady sank again into her couch,Panting and flushed; slowly she paled with thought;When she looked up the sun had sunk an hour,And one round star shook in the orange west.The lady sighed, "It was my father's bloodThat bore me, as a red and wrathful streamBears a shed leaf. I would recall my words,And yet I would not.Into what angry beauty rushed his face!What lips! what splendid eyes! 'twas pitifulTo see such splendours ebb in utter woe.His eyes half-won me. Tush! I am a fool;The blood that purples in these azure veins,Rich'd with its long course through a hundred earls,Were fouled and mudded if I stooped to him.My father loves him for his free wild wit;I for his beauty and sun-lighted eyes.To bring him to my feet, to kiss my hand,Had I it in my gift, I'd give the world,Its panting fire-heart, diamonds, veins of gold;Its rich strands, oceans, belts of cedared hills,Whence summer smells are struck by all the winds.But whether I might lance him through the brainWith a proud look,—or whether sternly killHim with a single deadly word of scorn,—Or whether yield me up,And sink all tears and weakness in his arms,And strike him blind with a strong shock of joy—Alas! I feel I could do each and all.I will be kind when next he brings me flowers,Plucked from the shining forehead of the morn,Ere they have oped their rich cores to the bee.His wild heart with a ringlet will I chain,And o'er him I will lean me like a heaven,And feed him with sweet looks and dew-soft words,And beauty that might make a monarch pale,And thrill him to the heart's core with a touch;Smile him to Paradise at close of eve,To hang upon my lips in silver dreams."

"When the grey morn was groping 'bout the eastThe Earl went trooping forth to chase the stag;I trust he hath not, to the sport he lovesBetter than ale-bouts, ta'en my cub of Ind.My sweetest plaything. He is bright and wildAs is a gleaming panther of the hills,—Lovely as lightning, beautiful as wild!His sports and laughters are with fierceness edged;There's something in his beauty all untamed,As I were toying with a naked sword,Which starts within my veins the blood of earls.I fain would have the service of his voiceTo kill with music this most languid noon."She rang a silver bell: with downcast eyesThe tawny nursling of the Indian sunStood at her feet. "I pr'ythee, Leopard, sing;Give me some stormy song of sword and lance,Which, rushing upward from a hero's heart,Straight rose upon a hundred leaguered hills,Ragged and wild as pyramid of flame.Or, better, sing some hungry lay of loveLike that you sang me on the eve you toldHow poor our English to your Indian darks;Shaken from od'rous hills, what tender smellsPass like fine pulses through the mellow nights;The purple ether that embathes the moon,—Your large round moon, more beautiful than ours;Your showers of stars, each hanging luminous,Like golden dewdrops in the Indian air.""I know a song, born in the heart of love,Its sweetest sweet, steeped ere the close in tears.'Twas sung into the cold ears of the starsBeside the murmured margent of the sea.'Tis of two lovers, matched like cymbals fine,Who, in a moment of luxurious blood,Their pale lips trembling in the kiss of gods,Made their lives wine-cups, and then drank them off,And died with beings full-blown like a rose;A mighty heart-pant bore them like a wave,And flung them, flowers, upon the next world's strand.

Night the solemn, night the starry,'Mong the oak-trees old and gnarry;By the sea-shore and the ships,'Neath the stars I sat with Clari;Her silken bodice was unlaced,My arm was trembling round her waist,I plucked the joys upon her lips;Joys that plucked still grow again!Canst thou say the same, old Night?Ha! thy life is vain.

Oh, that death would let me tarryLike a dewdrop on a flower,Ever on those lips of Clari!Our beings mellow, then they fall,Like o'er-ripe peaches from the wall;We ripen, drop, and all is o'er;On the cold grave weeps the rain;I weep it should be so, old Night.Ah! my tears are vain.

Night the solemn, night the starry,Say, alas! that years should harryGloss from life and joy from lips,Love-lustre from the eyes of Clari!Moon! that walkest the blue deep,Like naked maiden in her sleep;Star! whose pallid splendour dipsIn the ghost-waves of the main.Oh, ye hear me not! old Night,My tears and cries are vain."

He ceased to sing; queenly the lady lay,One white hand hidden in a golden shoalOf ringlets, reeling down upon her couch,And heaving on the heavings of her breast,The while the thoughts rose in her eyes like stars,Rising and setting in the blue of night."I had a cousin once," the lady said,"Who brooding sat, a melancholy owl,Among the twilight-branches of his thoughts.He was a rhymer, and great knights he spoiled,And damsels saved, and giants slew—in verse.He died in youth; his heart held a dead hope,As holds the wretched west the sunset's corpse:He went to his grave, nor told what man he was.He was unlanguaged, like the earnest sea,Which strives to gain an utterance on the shore,But ne'er can shape unto the listening hillsThe lore it gathered in its awful age;The crime for which 'tis lashed by cruel winds;The thought, pain, grief, within its labouring breast.To fledge with music, wings of heavy noon,I'll sing some verses that he sent to me:—

Where the west has sunset-bloomed,Where a hero's heart is tombed,Where a thunder-cloud has gloomed,

Seen, becomes a part of me.Flowers and rills live sunnilyIn gardens of my memory.

Through its walks and leafy lanes,Float fair shapes 'mong sunlight rains;Blood is running in their veins.

One, a queenly maiden fair,Sweepeth past me with an air,Kings might kneel beneath her stare.

Round her heart, a rosebud free,Reeled I, like a drunken bee;Alas! it would not ope to me.

One comes shining like a saint,But her face I cannot paint,For mine eyes and blood grow faint.

Eyes are dimmed as by a tear,Sounds are ringing in mine ear,I feel only, she is here,

That she laugheth where she stands,That she mocketh with her hands;I am bound in tighter bands.

Laid 'mong faintest blooms is one,Singing in the setting sun,And her song is never done.

She was born 'mong water-mills;She grew up 'mong flowers and rills,In the hearts of distant hills.

There, into her being stoleNature, and embued the whole,And illumed her face and soul.

She grew fairer than her peers;Still her gentle forehead wearsHoly lights of infant years.

Her blue eyes, so mild and meek,She uplifteth, when I speak,Lo! the blushes mount her cheek.

Weary I of pride and jest,In this rich heart I would rest,Purple and love-linèd nest.

"My dazzling panther of the smoking hills,When the hot sun hath touched their loads of dew,What strange eyes had my cousin, who could thus(For you must know I am the first o' the threeThat pace the gardens of his memory)Prefer before the daughter of great earls,This giglot, shining in her golden hair,Haunting him like a gleam or happy thought;Or her, the last, up whose cheeks blushes wentAs thick and frequent as the streamers passUp cold December nights. True, she might beA dainty partner in the game of lips,Sweet'ning the honeymoon; but what, alas!When redhot youth cools down to iron man?Could her white fingers close a helmet up,And send her lord unkissed away to field,Her heart striking with his arm in every blow?Would joy rush through her spirit like a stream,When to her lips he came with victory back:Acclaims and blessings on his head like crowns,His mouthèd wounds brave trumpets in his praise,Drawing huge shoals of people, like the moon,Whose beauty draws the solemn-noisèd seas?Or would his bright and lovely sanguine-stainsScare all the coward blood into her heart,Leaving her cheeks as pale as lily leaves?And at his great step would she quail and faint,And pay his seeking arms with bloodless swoon?My heart would leap to greet such coming lord,Eager to meet him, tiptoe on my lips."

"This cousin loved the Lady Constance; didThe Lady Constance love her cousin, too?"

"Ay, as a cousin. He woo'd me, Leopard mine,I speared him with a jest; for there are menWhose sinews stiffen 'gainst a knitted brow,Yet are unthreaded, loosened by a sneer,And their resolve doth pass as doth a wave:Of this sort was my cousin. I saw him once,Adown a pleachèd alley, in the sun,Two gorgeous peacocks pecking from his hand;At sight of me he first turned red, then pale.I laughed and said, 'I saw a misery perchedI' the melancholy corners of his mouth,Like griffins on each side my father's gates.'And, 'That by sighing he would win my heart,Somewhere as soon as he could hug the earth,And crack its golden ribs.' A week the boyDwelt in his sorrow, like a cataractUnseen, yet sounding through its shrouding mists.Strange likings, too, this cousin had of mine.A frail cloud trailing o'er the midnight moon,Was lovelier sight than wounded boar a-foamAmong the yelping dogs. He'd lie in fields,And through his fingers watch the changing clouds,Those playful fancies of the mighty sky,With deeper interest than a lady's face.He had no heart to grasp the fleeting hour,Which, like a thief, steals by with silent foot,In his closed hand the jewel of a life.He scarce would match this throned and kingdom'd earthAgainst a dew drop.

"Who'd leap into the chariot of my heart,And seize the reins, and wind it to his will,Must be of other stuff, my cub of Ind;White honour shall be like a plaything to him,Borne lightly, a pet falcon on his wrist;One who can feel the very pulse o' the time,Instant to act, to plunge into the strife,And with a strong arm hold the rearing world.In costly chambers hushed with carpets rich,Swept by proud beauties in their whistling silks,Mars' plait shall smooth to sweetness on his brow;His mighty front whose steel flung back the sun,When horsed for battle, shall bend above a handLaid like a lily in his tawny palm,With such a grace as takes the gazer's eye.His voice that shivered the mad trumpet's blare,—A new-raised standard to the reeling field,—Shall know to tremble at a lady's ear,To charm her blood with the fine touch of praise,And as she listens—steal away the heart.If the good gods do grant me such a man,More would I dote upon his trenchèd brows,His coal-black hair, proud eyes, and scornful lips,Than on a gallant, curled like Absalom,Cheek'd like Apollo, with his luted voice.

"Canst tell me, Sir Dark-eyes,Is 't true what these strange-thoughted poets say,That hearts are tangled in a golden smile?That brave cheeks pale before a queenly brow?That mail'd knees bend beneath a lighted eye?That trickling tears are deadlier than swords?That with our full-mooned beauty we can slaveSpirits that walk time, like the travelling sun,With sunset glories girt around his loins?That love can thrive upon such dainty foodAs sweet words, showering from a rosy lip,As sighs, and smiles, and tears, and kisses warm?"The dark Page lifted up his Indian eyesTo that bright face, and saw it all a-smile;And then half grave, half jestingly, he said,—"The devil fisheth best for souls of menWhen his hook is baited with a lovely limb;Love lights upon the heart, and straight we feelMore worlds of wealth gleam in an upturned eye,Than in the rich heart of the miser sea.Beauty hath made our greatest manhoods weak.There have been men who chafed, leapt on their times,And reined them in as gallants rein their steedsTo curvetings, to show their sweep of limb;Yet love hath on their broad brows written 'fool.'Sages, with passions held in leash like hounds;Grave Doctors, tilting with a lance of lightIn lists of argument, have knelt and sighedMost plethoric sighs, and been but very men;Stern hearts, close barred against a wanton world,Have had their gates burst open by a kiss.Why, there was one who might have topped all men,Who bartered joyously for a single smileThis empired planet with its load of crowns,And thought himself enriched. If ye are fair,Mankind will crowd around you thick as whenThe full-faced moon sits silver on the sea,The eager waves lift up their gleaming heads,Each shouldering for her smile."

The lady dowered him with her richest look,Her arch head half aside, her liquid eyes,From 'neath their dim lids drooping slumberous,Stood full on his, and called the wild blood upAll in a tumult to his sun-kissed cheek,As if it wished to see her beauty too—Then asked in dulcet tones, "Dost thinkmefair?""Oh, thou art fairer than an Indian morn,Seated in her sheen palace of the east.Thy faintest smile out-prices the swelled wombsOf fleets, rich-glutted, toiling wearilyTo vomit all their wealth on English strands.The whiteness of this hand should ne'er receiveA poorer greeting than the kiss of kings;And on thy happy lips doth sit a joy,Fuller than any gathered by the gods,In all the rich range of their golden heaven.""Now, by my mother's white enskied soul!"The lady cried, 'twixt laugh and blush the while,"I'll swear thou'st been in love, my Indian sweet.Thy spirit on another breaks in joy,Like the pleased sea on a white-breasted shore—That blush tells tales. And now, I swear by allThe well-washed jewels strewn on fathom-sands,That thou dost keep her looks, her words, her sighs,Her laughs, her tears, her angers, and her frowns,Balmed between memory's leaves; and ev'ry dayDost count them o'er and o'er in solitude,As pious monks count o'er their rosaries.Now, tell me, did she give thee love for love?Or didst thou make Midnight thy confidant,Telling her all about thy lady's eyes,How rich her cheek, how cold as death her scorn?My lustrous Leopard, hast thou been in love?"The Page's dark face flushed the hue of wineIn crystal goblet stricken by the sun;His soul stood like a moon within his eyes,Suddenly orbed; his passionate voice was shookBy trembling into music.—"Thee I love.""Thou!" and the Lady, with a cruel laugh,(Each silver throb went through him like a sword,)Flung herself back upon her fringèd couch.From which she rose upon him like a queen,She rose and stabbed him with her angry eyes."'Tis well my father did not hear thee, boy,Or else my pretty plaything of an hourMight have gone sleep to-night without his head,And I might waste rich tears upon his fate.I would not have my sweetest plaything hurt.Dost think to scorch me with those blazing eyes,My fierce and lightning-blooded cub o' the sun?Thy blood is up in riot on thy brow,I' the face o' its monarch. Peace! By my grey sire,Now could I slay thee with one look of hate,One single look! My Hero! my Heart-god!My dusk Hyperion, Bacchus of the Inds!My Hercules, with chin as smooth as my own!I am so sorry maid, I cannot wearThis great and proffered jewel of thy love.Thou art too bold, methinks! Didst never fearThat on my poor deserts thy love would sitLike a great diamond on a threadbare robe?I tremble for 't. I pr'ythee, come to-morrowAnd I will pasture you upon my lipsUntil thy beard be grown. Go now, sir, go."As thence she waved him with arm-sweep superb,The light of scorn was cold within her eyes,And withered his bloom'd heart, which, like a rose,Had opened, timid, to the noon of love.

The lady sank again into her couch,Panting and flushed; slowly she paled with thought;When she looked up the sun had sunk an hour,And one round star shook in the orange west.The lady sighed, "It was my father's bloodThat bore me, as a red and wrathful streamBears a shed leaf. I would recall my words,And yet I would not.Into what angry beauty rushed his face!What lips! what splendid eyes! 'twas pitifulTo see such splendours ebb in utter woe.His eyes half-won me. Tush! I am a fool;The blood that purples in these azure veins,Rich'd with its long course through a hundred earls,Were fouled and mudded if I stooped to him.My father loves him for his free wild wit;I for his beauty and sun-lighted eyes.To bring him to my feet, to kiss my hand,Had I it in my gift, I'd give the world,Its panting fire-heart, diamonds, veins of gold;Its rich strands, oceans, belts of cedared hills,Whence summer smells are struck by all the winds.But whether I might lance him through the brainWith a proud look,—or whether sternly killHim with a single deadly word of scorn,—Or whether yield me up,And sink all tears and weakness in his arms,And strike him blind with a strong shock of joy—Alas! I feel I could do each and all.I will be kind when next he brings me flowers,Plucked from the shining forehead of the morn,Ere they have oped their rich cores to the bee.His wild heart with a ringlet will I chain,And o'er him I will lean me like a heaven,And feed him with sweet looks and dew-soft words,And beauty that might make a monarch pale,And thrill him to the heart's core with a touch;Smile him to Paradise at close of eve,To hang upon my lips in silver dreams."

LADY.

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