Days and Dreams Part 12

They brought him on a bier of spears.-- For him--the death-won spurs and name; For her--the sting of secret tears, And convent walls to hide her shame.

THE BLIND HARPER.

And thus it came my feet were led To wizard walls that hairy hung Old as their rock the moss made dead; And, like a ditch of fire flung Around it, uncouth flowers red Thrust spur and fang and tongue.

And here I harped. Did dead men list?

Or was it hollow hinges gnarred Huge, iron scorn in donjon-twist?

And when I thought a face sword-scarred Would curse me, lo! a woman kissed At me hands ringed and starred.

And so I sang; for she had leaned Rare beauty to me, dark and tall; I sang of Love, whose Court is queened Of Alienor the virginal, Nor saw how rolled on me a fiend Wolf-eyeb.a.l.l.s from the wall.

Oh, how I sang! until she laughed Red lips that made lute harmony; I sang of knights who fought and quaffed To Love's own paragon, Marie-- Nor saw the suzerain whose shaft Was bowed and bent on me.

And I had harped until she wept; But when I sang of Ermengarde Of Anjou,--where her Court is kept By brave, by beauty, and by bard,-- She turned a raven there and swept Me, like a fury, 'ward.

A bleeding beak had pierced my sight; A crimson claw each cheek had lined; One glimpse: wild walls of threatening night Heaped raven battlements behind A moat of blazing serpents bright-- And then I wandered blind.

ELPHIN.

The eve was a burning copper, The night was a boundless black Where wells of the lightning crumbled And boiled with blazing rack, When I came to the coal-black castle With the wild rain on my back.

Thrice under its goblin towers, Where the causey of rock was laid, Thrice, there at its spider portal, My scornful bugle brayed, But never a warder questioned,-- An owl's was the answer made.

When the heaven above was blistered One scald of blinding storm, And the blackness clanged like a cavern Of iron where demons swarm, I rode in the court of the castle With the s.h.i.+eld upon my arm.

My sword unsheathed and certain Of the visor of my casque, My steel steps challenged the donjon My gauntlet should unmask; But never a knight or varlet To stay or slay or ask.

My heels on the stone ground iron, My fists on the bolts clashed steel;-- In the hall, the roar of the torrent, In the turret, the thunder's peal;-- And I found her there in the turret Alone by her spinning-wheel.

She spun the flax of a spindle, And I wondered on her face; She spun the flax of a spindle, And I marvelled on her grace; She spun the flax of a spindle, And I watched a little s.p.a.ce.

But nerves of my manhood weakened; The heart in my breast was wax; Myself but the hide of an image Out-stuffed with the hards of flax:-- She spun and she smiled a-spinning A spindle of blood-red flax.

She spun and she laughed a-spinning The blood of my veins in a skein; But I knew how the charm was mastered, And snapped in the hissing vein; So she wove but a fiery scorpion That writhed from her hands again....

Fleeing in rain and in tempest, Saw by the cataract's bed,-- Cancers of ulcerous fire, Wounds of a b.l.o.o.d.y red,-- Its windows glare in the darkness Eyes of a dragon's head.

PRE-ORDINATION.

She bewitched me in my childhood, And the witch's charm is hidden-- Far beyond the wicked wildwood I shall find it, I am bidden.

She commands me, she who bound me With soft sorcery to follow; In a golden snare who wound me To her bosom's snowy hollow....

Comes a night-dark stallion sired Of the wind; a mare his mother Whom Thessalian madness fired, And the hurricane his brother.

Then my soul delays no longer: Though the night around is scowling, Keenly mount him blacker, stronger Than the tempest that is howling.

At our ears wild shadows whistle; Brazen forks the lightning o'er us Flames; and huge the thunder's missile Bursts behind us, drags before us.

Over fire-scorched fields of stubble; Iron forests dark with wonder; Evil marshes black with trouble; Nightmare torrents thundering under:

In the thorn that past us races, Harelipped hags like crows are rocking; Stunted oaks have dwarf-like faces Gnarled that leer an impish mocking:

Rocks, in which the storm is hooting, Thrust a humpbacked murder over; Bristling heaths, dead thistles shooting, Raven-haunted gibbets cover:

Each and all are pa.s.sed, like water Under-rolled into a cavern, Till we see the Devil's daughter Waiting at the Devil's tavern.

And we stay; I drain the beaker In her hand; the draught is fire; World-remembrances grow weaker, And my spirit, one desire.

Course it! course it! Darkness pa.s.ses Like an uprolled banner tattered; Walled before us mountain ma.s.ses Rise like centuries unscattered.

And the storm flies ragged. Slowly Comes a moon of copper-color, And the evil night grows holy, Mists the wild ride growing duller.

In the round moon's angry scanning, Demon-swift cross spider arches Of the web-thick bridges spanning Chasms of her kingdom's marches.

We have reached her kingdom, olden As the sea that sighs its sadness; Rocks and trees and sands are golden, And the air a golden gladness.

Shapely ingots are the flowers, And the waters, amber brightness; Gold-bright, song-birds in the bowers Sing with eyes of diamond whiteness.

And she meets me with a chalice Like the Giamschid ruby burning, And I drain it without malice, To her towers of topaz turning.

Many hundred years forgetting All that's earth: within her power I possess her: naught regretting Since each year is as an hour.

AT THE STILE.

Young Harry leapt over the stile and kissed her, Over the stile the stars a-winking; He thought it was Mary--'t was Mary's sister-- And love hath a way of thinking.

"Thy pail, sweetheart, I will take and carry."-- Over the stile the stars hang yellow.-- "Just to the spring, my sweetheart Harry."-- And love is a heartless fellow.

"Thou saidst me _yea_ when the frost did shower Over the stile from stars a-s.h.i.+ver."-- "I say thee _nay_ now the cherry-trees flower, And love is taker and giver."

"O false! thou art false to me, sweetheart!"-- Over the stile the stars a-glister.

"To thee, the stars, and myself, sweetheart, I never was aught save Mary's sister.