MINNIE MAYLOW’S STORY
AND OTHER TALES
AND SCENES

I am a pilgrim come from many lands,

With stories gathered about many fires,

Some, when the moon rose above Asian sands,

Some, when the sun set over English shires.

How often have I told these tales before

To you, the listening pilgrims, who anon

Set out towards the wells you thirsted for

Across the desert, while the planet shone?

Often, perhaps; and often may re-tell,

In distant lands and times, as daylight fails,

When you, the pilgrims, camp beside the well,

And I, the pilgrim, recollect the tales.

Many a story did the poets tell

To him, who loved their tales and listened well.

But one defect their tales had, that they ended,

Always, at last, the lady was befriended,

The sinner was confounded, lovers blessed.

The story’s sun went down into the west.

Then the King said, “Would poets could contrive

An endless tale, whose heroes do not wive;

A story ever fresh and never done,

Like the august procession of the sun.

Royally watching mortals from the sky,

That sinks, but rises, and can never die.”

Then he proclaimed, “It is our royal will

That poets (duly qualified in skill)

Come to our court, and tell an endless tale.”

But those who tried it were of no avail.

Their stories lagged enfeebled and then died,

So that in disappointment the King cried,

“Henceforth it shall be death, to any man,

Who comes to court declaring that he can

Tell me an endless tale and fails therein,

It shall be death, like treason, or great sin,

Upon the headsman’s block on Tower Hill.

But any poet who shall have the skill

To tell an endless tale shall have for prize

My daughter’s hand and half my baronies;

And, when I die, shall have my crown as heir.

Heralds, go forth: proclaim this everywhere.”

It was proclaimed, but, when the threat was known,

The story-tellers left the court alone,

Even though the princess’ beauty was so great

As to tempt any poet to his fate.

Though she was known as Emily the Fair,

Heartsease, and Morning Star, and Golden Hair:

Each story-teller feared to lose his head.

Then the King grieved, for his delight was dead.

No story-teller came with thrilling rhyme

To charm his soul with ‘Once upon a time’.

Only his Juggler and the Fool remained:

One he disliked, the other he disdained.

Then silence fell upon the palace hall,

Save for the sentry passing on the wall:

Or some old general coming to report

On army remounts at his frontier fort.

Men with most dreary tales of old attacks,

With half their brains gouged by the battle-axe;

Or ministers with courtesies in their spines,

Or Labour members talking about mines;

Or scarlet admirals, whose breezy tone

Made the King thankful to be left alone.

None who could charm him, as in days of old

The poets with the stories that they told.

And Emily the Fair, with downcast eyes,

Guided the bright silk of her ’broideries.

Loving her father, yet, without offence,

Wishing the loved one might have had more sense,

And not be self-condemned to sit like lead,

Dumb by the fire betwixt meat and bed,

Or snarling, as he poked the burning logs,

“This land of mine is going to the Dogs.”

One night the porter came before the King,

Saying, “Behold, my lord, a marvellous thing,

Here at your gate a young man brings a tale

That will go on for ever without fail.

He knows the penalty of unsuccess,

His head upon the gate, but none the less

Determines to adventure for the prize.”

“Young,” said the King. “The young are never wise

And all their stories are but washy stuff:

Still, youth demands until it has enough.

This man shall have enough, like all the rest.

Bid him go see the chaplain; it were best

He make his peace before he make his trial.”

“He would not take advice, nor yet denial,”

The porter said: “but hungers to begin.”

“Checking a fool in folly is not sin,”

The King replied, “so let him come to me:

Put up your night’s embroidery, Emily.

A tale-teller has come to show his skill.”

Now the dark palace-hall began to fill,

With knights and men-at-arms and palace dames

And pine logs on the fire cast ruddy flames

That made the shadows dance upon the wall.

Then the King rose and said, “Friends, listen all.

A story-teller comes to-night to try

His fortune in a tale that cannot die.

Where is he, porter? Let the lad appear.”

A young man at the entrance answered “Here.”

And coming forward stood before the King,

Bright as the golden pheasant in the Spring,

Cool as the antlered royal on the crag,

Tense as the racehorse waiting for the flag.

Then the King said, “You doubtless know the rules

That hedge our Throne from the attempts of fools.

Those who begin and fail in the attempt

Stand self-condemned and none shall be exempt,

Steel lops away the peccant proser’s head.

Your person seems unready to be dead.”

“Sire,” the youth said, “I understand the terms.

I dread no headsman’s axe, nor coffin worms,

I venture all things gladly for the stake:—

This fair Princess for whom so many ache.

I do not come for glory nor for land

But as a suitor striving for her hand.

If I succeed, and she will have me . . . well.

If not, come headsman with the burial knell:

And shut me from the presence of her worth.

For the most beautiful princess on earth,

I come to tell a story without end.”

Then the King answered, “Very well, my friend.

If you can tell a tale that will endure

Daily as sunrise and as season-sure,

This fair Princess and half my land shall be

Yours, now, and all my kingdom after me.

But if you fail, you die: are you content?”

“Yes,” the youth said: “the terms are excellent.

If you permit, I will begin my story:—

Our ancient poets, excellent in glory,

Say that of old this England had a King

Who dreaded Famine above everything . . .

Dreaded, lest anywhere, in toft or street,

Subject of his should lack enough to eat,

And he behold his people wanting food.

So, being eager for his country’s good,

He swore, on coming to his father’s throne,

That, while he ruled, hunger should be unknown

To woman, child or man throughout his realm.

Then being crowned, and settled at the helm,

He called for England’s chiefest architect,

Firstly to draw, and after to erect

A granary with cellars, walls and roof

Water proof, tempest proof, and earthquake proof.

The granary was filled, up to the hatch

With peerless wheat and barley without match.

‘Now we are saved,’ the King cried, ‘from our dread

And we can sleep with an untroubled head,

And shall not dream of hunger, nor of towns

With all their people starved to skeletons;

With their lips green from biting on the grass.

Men shall forget that ever Famine was.

This grain will last through ten lean years together;

Let blight, or smut, or rust, or rainy weather,

Or wind, that lays the blade and earths the ear,

Let them all come, I say: We need not fear;

We have destroyed what has destroyed mankind.’

So, with glad heart, contented in his mind,

He bade them seal the granary hatch with lead.

‘Let Famine fall,’ he thought, ‘we shall be fed.’

But mark, O King, upon how small a point

A mortal craft will shipwreck and disjoint.

In that gigantic granary’s topmost wall

One tiny scrap of mortar came to fall,

Leaving a chink that no man’s eye could see,

Being aloft where men could never be.

Now, King, this vasty mass of gathered wheat

Sent forth a smell, unknown by man, but sweet

To all the locusts of the world, who flew,

Longing to see where so much eating grew.

So that the skies were dark with locusts flying,

Then for three days men saw the locusts trying

To find some entrance to that shuttered store:

And in the end one lively locust tore

Through that small chink from which the mortar fell

And stole away one grain. O King, I tell

Nothing but truth. Another locust came

And struggled through the hole and did the same.

And then another locust did the same.

As secretly as sickness in a bone,

So wrought these locusts utterly unknown.

Who could suspect a cranny? Who suspect

The building Guild, the royal Architect?

Unseen as poison breathed in with the breath;

Each of three locusts dealt a corn a death.

Then came a fourth and took a corn and went

Then a fifth locust who was bulky, bent

And almost blocked the chink, but struggled through

And took a grain, and a sixth locust, too.

And then a seventh crept into the hole;

And then an eighth; and eighth and seventh stole

Each one a grain, and carried it away

And then a ninth one, having seen the way,

Crept in and took a barleycorn and fled.

The tenth was a king-locust, spotted red.

He took three grains, being of royal blood.

The eleventh took a grain and found it good.

Then the twelfth locust, shining in the sun

Crept in and took a grain. The thirteenth one

Followed and took a corn. The fourteenth came

And took a corn. The fifteenth did the same

And then the sixteenth locust did the same.

And another locust carried off another.

And another locust came, the first one’s brother.

He took a corn, and then his brother drew

It through the hole, and took another, too.

And then another locust found the place

And another locust followed him in chase,

And another locust followed close behind

And another locust, hungry as the wind,

Leaped in upon his tracks and took a corn

And a battered locust, who was all forlorn

Lame in one leg, and sorry on the wing,

Came in and took another grain, O King.

Sometimes in hot Septembers one may see

On gray cathedral roofs the wasps in glee

Whirling against the blue sky overhead

From papery nests hung underneath the lead,

So men beheld these locusts, but none guessed

That greed of grain had given them such zest.

There came a black Saturnian one, there came

A stalwart Jovian, with crest of flame.

A glittering, dainty Venus-locust flew

Questing for corn, red Martians followed, too.

Each took a grain, and then, a marvellous sight

A locust bowed with age, whose hair was white,

Boy, by our Father’s Corpse down in the mould

Stop this unworthy folly of the flies.

Get to your tale.” The young man said, “Be wise . . .

Govern your kingdom, Sire, as seems good

But leave a story-teller to his mood.

I tell the tale of what the locusts did.

Another locust crept within and hid,

Under a pile of wheat and took two grains.

And then a locust suffering from pains,

Searched for a peppercorn to warm his marrow:

Then a sow-locust with her twenty farrow

Crept one by one into the chink and stole

And then another locust found the hole,

And crept within and pillaged like the last

And then another locust followed fast.

And then another locust followed soon.

Then one, with wits unsettled by the moon,

Strayed crooning through the hole and did the same.

And then another, and another came.

And then another and another followed

And soon the space between the bricks was hollowed,

So as to hold a locust and a quarter;

And then another locust pressed the mortar.

And then another came and wore it smooth,

And then another came and fleshed his tooth

Right to the bitter kernel of an oat.

Then yet another, with a greedy throat

Came in, and then his cousin, and his aunt.”

“Stop!” said the King. The young man said, “I can’t.

I have to tell my story as it was.

I serve poetic truth, a noble cause.

I will not stop for conqueror or king.

Another locust came upon the wing.”

“Silence,” the King said. “Silence. Tell me, friend,

How soon this locust incident will end?”

“It will not end,” the youth said. “It will go

As it has gone for ever. You will know

All that each locust of those millions did,

Give ear, my King.” The King said, “Jove forbid!”

“It is my tale,” the youth said, “and you shall.

I staked my life upon it in this hall,

To tell a story for your prize, and now

Many might think you meant to break your vow.

Let me proceed. Another locust came.”

“Young man,” the King said, “you have missed your aim.

Your story fails, although I grant you clever;

Those locusts could not carry corn for ever.

They might have for a year, but in the end

That granary was bare. What then, my friend?”

“Sire,” the youth said, “the King, who made the store,

Filled it again, much fuller than before.

And another locust came and took a corn.”

“O readiest story-teller ever born,”

The King cried, “you have conquered; we submit

And, as our Daughter seems rejoiced at it,

Son, you shall marry Emily the Fair,

Have half my kingdom now, and be my heir.

My heralds shall design you a device,

On a field wavy, semée wheat and rice,

Three locusts proper, bearing each a grain.

Girl, never let him tell that tale again!”

O hellish Sathanas, feend dampnable.

O corsed foule wrecche, soth to say,

Thou wast so wlatsom, so abhominable,

And eke so mordrous without any nay,

Thou didst persuade Eva welaway

To take the greene pomme from the tre

O fatal apple, seed of miserie!

For as hit fel by dominacioun

Of thise derke sterres, as I gesse

Or rede Mars in Opposicioun

To Fortune’s brighte sterres, More or Lesse,

Or declinacioun of lukkinesse,

God wot, I nis no more than a babe.

Redith thise clerkes on the Astrolabe.

But so hit fel that Adam is ygo

Out of thys garden for a day or twey,

Him liste se the wilde horses go

Thise litel prety Centaures, soth to sey,

So forth he goth, though Eva said him nay

He careth never a del, forth is he went.

Now Sathanas, let launch thy fel intent.

This corsed wrecche, I mene this Sathanas,

Upon his bely sobtilely doth crawl

Into thys garden on the grene gras

Ther as the thikke hegge has i-fal,

Or els a mous had eten through the wal

And left an hole: he on his bely crepith

To the grene bour thereas Eva slepith.

O Judas of dissimulacioun,

O false Ganelon of evil lukke,

Fly, sparwe, fly, with informacioun,

Beth Adam ’ware the feend is with hys chukke:

O pypen, blisful goos, o quakke dukke,

Warn sely Eva sleeping in the bour

Ther comth this false corsed tregetour.

But as thys Cato saith in Scipioun,

In his old boke that thise clerkes rede,

“Though all men shryken Morder in the toun

What botes it if the wrecche have done the deed?”

The woful cors, forblodied, skarlet-reed,

Gettith no gost, for al they cry Allas.

Now comth this Sathanas where Eva was.

O sely Eva, moder of us al,

Thou wast to nice and grene, ye, God woot,

The rede apple round as is a bal

Goth doun the sclendre golet of thy throot;

Thou ettist it when thou was tolde noot . . .

Wepe, Adam, wepe, thy wyf has lost hir sense,

Sewith thy napron, farewel innocence.

For ye han herd how Adamas and Eve

For apple-take were chased our of hir bour,

Where the swete birdis sang in the grene leve

They might not stop a minute ne an hour.

Their salte teres wetted many a flour;

Hem listed nat to wenden wel away,

But out they went, ther nis namore to say.

So on his coming-of-age-day out he went

Forth from his father’s palace, caring no straw

For how his Mother begged him to be careful:

For “Oh,” she cried, out of the palace turret,

“Beware, my lovely boy, of Son of Adam.

Of all the dangerous deadly beasts of Earth,

He is the dangerousest and the deadliest.”

This shiny Lion, full of beauty of youth,

Went to the drinking-pools where the gazelles went,

But not to seek gazelles. Into the water

He peered a long, long time at his reflection,

And smiled and said: “Perhaps not beautiful,

But oh, how interesting and how virile.

Let Son of Adam come here: only let him.”

Then, rising up, he paced into the desert

Shewing his teeth, lashing his flank with his tail,

And with deep coughing roars calling aloud

“Come, Son of Adam, with your deadly danger.”

And lo, out of the air there came a stranger,

A gray bird ghastly, with all tail feathers gone,

Part plucked, part moulted, altogether battered.

“What Animal are you?” the Lion asked it.

“I’m a Goose Animal,” the creature answered.

“And I am running away from Son of Adam

Who longs to cook and eat me: he has ravished

My feathers, as you see: it is his custom

To eat us geese with apple sauce and sages;

Our feathers stuff his beds, our grease, out-melted,

He rubs upon his skin to make him shiny.

He is a deadly thing, the Son of Adam.”

The Lion answered: “Leave the matter to Me.

Myself will deal with him and see you righted.”

He paced a little further upon his way

And lo, another creature, withered and gray,

Came hobbling, stumbling, ribbed and shoulder-sorry

A lop-eared, pondering thing, clever, perverse.

“What Animal are you?” the Lion asked it.

“I am a Donkey Animal,” it answered.

“And I am running away from Son of Adam.

Who bangs me with a stick and makes me labour

Dragging the load of barley sacks to market,

Beatings and kicks and curses are my portion,

The chaff the horses leave, the hay the cows leave,

The meal the pigs refuse, and autumn wind-falls:

These, and, sometimes, a happy dream of carrots.

A dream, I say, a vision, that on waking

Fades to an empty crib with the rain dripping.

Such is my life, but even when pale Death comes

To end my life of sorrows and release me

Still Son of Adam comes, he takes my skin off

And moulds it into what he knows as vellum

On which his devilish deep ones write their deeds.

Dangerous are the deeds of Son of Adam.”

“Leave him to me, my friend,” the Lion answered,

“Myself will deal with him and see you righted.”

Onward he paced, engrossed in his importance,

And as he felt the wiseness of his wisdom,

Lo, coming thither was another creature

A little like the Donkey in his feature

But shorter in the ear and sadder-looking

The ribs more staring and the knees more broken

Such as a cats’-meat man would rub his hands at.

“What Animal are you?” the Lion asked it.

“I am a Pack-Horse Animal,” it answered.

“And I am running away from Son of Adam.

Deadly and dangerous is Son of Adam:

He makes my life a burden beyond bearing,

With ploughing, harrowing and homing harvest,

Taking the sacks to mill, turning the mill-stone,

Then dragging back the flour to the baker.

And always being ridden, having my jaw jabbed

With snatchings on the bit and ‘Back there, will you.’

And always getting saddle-galls and spavins

And curby hocks and colic and the staggers.

And for my food, to give me strength to labour

I ask you what, and Echo answers with me.

Chaff that a sailor would reject in biscuit;

Hay that a politician would not purchase

During a war, and corn the forage merchants

Could not dispose of, even to a general.

And in the green time, in the happy summer,

When the pink clover blossoms in the hayfield,

And all beasts banquet, never think that I do,

Not with a Son of Adam for a master.

I snatch a dusty mouthful from the roadside

The while I drag the hayload to the hayrick

And even then am struck, and Son of Adam

Cries, ‘You’re not here to gormandize but labour.

Pull up, now, to your collar; pull, you cab-horse.’

And even when I perish, Son of Adam

Makes profit of me, selling me to kennels

To boil with barley into broth for foxhounds,

And others boil my horny hoofs for jelly

And sell my flesh for cats’-meat or for sausage;

Unhappy Pack-Horse, deadly Son of Adam.”

“Leave him to me, my friend,” the Lion answered.

“Myself will deal with him and see you righted.”

So, pacing on, he mused, “In after ages

These paltry beasts will raise a temple to me,

The Lion of all Lions of all Lions

Loud roaring vanquisher of Son of Adam

Where is this Son of Adam? Let me see him.”

And as he spoke, behold, coming towards him,

There was a Something of a mildewed aspect

So sorrowful, so furless and so feeble

That it was doubtful what it could be reckoned;

Whether an Animal or only Nightmare.

It had no teeth to speak of, and no talons,

No fur upon its head, but moulted baldness,

Two wretched legs it had, and one a lame one,

A coat all ragged, shewing rags beneath it.

Across its back was slung a builder’s wallet

And on its shoulders, staggeringly, it bore

A load of planks and also an iron door.

And seeing it, at first, the Lion doubted

Whether to stoop to speak to such a creature.

Then with extreme misliking and disfavour

He asked the thing: “What Animal are you then?”

The creature, putting down his burdens, panted

And touched his brow, and said, “To tell the truth, sir,

I am a Builder-Animal, so please you.

And I am running away from Son of Adam,

Because I can’t agree with Son of Adam.

And why? Because this Son of Adam asks me

To build at things I cannot reckon building.

They are not building, no, but jerry-building,

These bungalows in ribbons down a roadside,

These cottages constructed by the Council,

Workers like me can’t reckon them as building.

Give me to build at building that is building;

One of these towers like a minaret now

Or pyramid all pointed for a Pharaoh . . .

But tripe, not taste, is Son of Adam’s fancy.

No use to talk to him of architecture.

Besides he wants no workers, no, but wage-slaves

That he can grind to do his deeds of darkness.

I tell him plain I’ll do no jerry-building . . .

Since Builder-Animals must die like others,

I say ‘Die building palaces not pigsties.’

So here I come, to build a palace and die.”

Salt tears were glistening in the Builder’s eye.

“I come,” he said, “prepared to build a palace

For him they call the King of Beasts, the Monarch

Of all live things, the Conqueror and Captain

The Emperor of Animals, the Leopard.”

“Leopard?” the Lion said. “You are mistaken.

The Leopard is not Emperor nor Captain,

Nor Conqueror, nor Monarch; he is nothing . . .

The certain spotty grace that we accord him

He shares with currant dumplings and hyænas . . .

And as for King, he’s less a King than you are.

Lions have palaces and Leopards lairs, sir . . .

And that if Lions choose. I am a Lion . . .

Build me a palace: talk no more of Leopards . . .

For by the Lion Sun who ranges Heaven

Tossing his mane of fire from his shoulders,

To talk of Leopards in such terms is treason.”

“Forgive me my mistake, sir,” said the Builder.

“It comes from all that Son of Adam taught me.

Leopards indeed! Indeed I see my error,

Seeing a royal Lion like yourself, sir,

(That is, as far as I can see, from dazzle).

O what great joy and rapture and promotion

For this poor wage slave ’scaped from Son of Adam

To build a palace for a Royal Lion

A Conqueror and Emperor and Sultan.

To think that with these plankings and this hammer

These hands will build a palace for your Kingship

To see your smiles and echo with your singing

And gleam with the reflection of your beauty.

For, sir, when I beheld your beauty coming

I thought, ‘This is some planet or some angel.’

And now, to think I am to build your palace.

O happy Builder-Animal, thrice happy:

O lucky nails, O blessed plank and hammer.”

And as he spoke, he built a little palace

Then turned it upside down, and through the bottom

Drove four and five inch nails, so that the points stuck

Up, through the floors, and each one pointing inward.

“Why drive the nails like that?” the Lion asked him.

“In royal palaces we always put them,”

The Builder said, “It is the royal hall mark.

The palace is now ready, if it please you.

Will you walk in?”

“It is not very big,” the Lion answered.

“There’s lots of room inside, I do assure you,”

The Builder said, “As sweet a little palace

Ay, and as roomy as a King could look for.

Just step inside and see it for yourself, sir.”

So stooping down the Lion crawled within it,

And instantly the Builder clapped the door to,

The iron door, and locked it with a padlock.

Then went away, but soon returned rejoicing

Riding the Donkey Animal, and plucking

The Goose for dinner, while he drove the Pack-Horse.

He halted there, and hove the Lion palace

The Lion still inside, onto the Pack-Horse

And drove him to the Sultan, where he sold him.

But Tristan and the Queen were lovers sworn

Both having drunk the love-drink meant for Marc.

Brangwen in bitter anguish went forlorn,

Loving the King: she, too, had drunk the dram,

Had played the Queen that marriage night till morn,

And lived upon her memory of the dark.

These souls, like petals in a mill-race swam.

It fell that Marc, upon Midsummer Eve,

Went to the holy hill above the wood

And saw the moon steal slowly up and cleave

The white, still clouds that glittered as she came.

And lo, he saw the forest-goddess leave

The aged Oak of Watching that there stood;

She sped to him, and called him by his name.

She was a mighty lady crowned with oak

In its young green, with oak-apple; she held

In her left hand a spear clutched to her cloak,

Her marvellous hair was gathered to her head.

Her sandals were bright fire without smoke.

Her robe was of fresh beechen leaves all stelled

With hawthorn blossom that never would be dead.

Antlers she bore, and from her leafy dress

Peered squirrels’ eyes intelligencing quick

All things that happened with all suddenness.

The swiftness of the forest life was hers

All, from the ousel running ’neath the cress

To soft-foot stags that never snap the stick;

Her voice was as the forest when it stirs.

“King Marc,” she said, “Since you have honored me

At all times, having kept this holy copse

From hunting horn and hound forever free,

Nor let the woodmen’s axes lop and split

The branches of my oaken dwelling-tree,

Where falcons nest and the red squirrel hops,

Now you shall joy in my reward for it.

“I have three gifts to offer to your choice:

Wisdom and Power and Immortality,

Wisdom that makes the spinning stars rejoice;

Power that makes the singing stars to spin;

And last, that Death shall never still your voice,

Eternal Living, Marc, from Death set free.

Which shall I give you? you shall choose: begin.

“Each of the three gifts you may give away

But must not share: I cannot help you choose:—

Each is a glory wrested from the clay

By spirit striving against mortal odds

To hive a little sunlight from the day.

Each is a splendour for immortal use,

Each, being had, will make you like the gods.”

She waited, while Marc pondered which to take

Of those three glowing fruits the goddess had.

Rejecting any would be such mistake.

But this he thought: “Since any may be given,

Which were the loveliest gift for me to make

To my beloved Queen, to make her glad?

Which would my Isolt love, my bird of Heaven?”

And thought “The gift of Immortality

Would be the loveliest gift, it would ensure

That Death would spare that living ecstasy,

That April, at whose passing the grass springs;

Death should be powerless on such as she;

That White Rose of Midsummer should endure,

Bringing forever the beauty that she brings . . .”

“Therefore,” (he told the goddess) “I will choose

Immortal Life of what you offer here

Healing to every cut, balm to each bruise,

Life, flowing in wherever fever is,

Life, the advancing knight who cannot lose,

Life, that is enemy to death and fear,

Life, that brings vision to the mind amiss.”

The goddess gave the central glowing fruit,

“This gives immortal life to whomso eats,”

She said, “It grows upon a deathless root

Men see it glimmer if they give their lives.

Breath cannot falter nor the pulse be mute

Of whomso swallows its exciting sweets.

Eat and be quit of all that Death contrives:

Or give (you may not share) if give you must . . .

Only a god’s gift should not lightly pass

At greedy bidding from a mortal lust.

God chooses the recipients of his gifts,

As earthly kings their messengers of trust,

The golden vessels not the things of brass,

Not clay that crumbles nor the sand that shifts.”

Then she was gone as stilly as the moon

Creeps into mist: not any hazel stirred.

Marc looked upon the goddess’ glowing boon:—

A quince, like living ember to the sight;

Of intense tint, but ever changing soon,

As gorget jewels on the humming-bird;

Now drawing to itself, now giving, light.

Then hastening back to palace, Marc repaired

Straight to the Queen and cried “Isolt, my own,

I bring you here Life’s very essence bared.

Accept the fruit of immortality;

The spirit powers forbid it to be shared;

Its excellence must be for you alone,

Life at its fullest, for eternity.

“The goddess gave this wonder even now

And said: ‘The Eater cannot taste of Death,’

This apple grew on an immortal bough

Whose roots are thrusted in eternal things.

Beloved, with this gift I Thee endow,

Eat, my beloved, that your blood and breath

May be exempt from mortal sorrowings.

“And be, forever, beauty, as they are

Now, to myself, O treasure of the West.

My joy, my Morning and my Evening Star,

I have so longed for such a gift to give . . .

The winds will blow my perished dust afar

This dust that loves you and that you have blessed.

What matters that, beloved: you will live.”

Then Isolt took the Fruit of Life and said

“Marc, you were ever generous, to the soul;

I take this precious gift that you have made.

But for the eating of this living fruit . . .

That is a question to be deeply weighed.

How beautiful it is . . . like glowing coal . . .

Ask me not what I purpose, but be mute

“About it: it were better if we both

Kept silence about this most marvellous gift.

My husband, ever since we plighted troth

You have been royal to me, gift and thought.

I who have profited have suffered sloth

To check the gratitude that should be swift

And generous as the gift, and as unsought.”

She bowed her lips upon the fruit and went.

That following afternoon at milking time

When all the palace hinds were up the bent

(Save the smiths shoeing and the men at mill)

She stole into the gallery and lent

Over the rail, and softly sang a rhyme,

And Tristan came at call to know her will.

“Tristan,” she said, “My heart’s beloved friend,

This fire-glowing fruit that has been given,

Gives to the Eater Life without an end.

I cannot share it; but I cannot eat

Taking a joy I cannot give nor lend

To you, beloved soul, my earthly Heaven.

Take it from me, and be immortal, sweet.

“For then I shall be happy, knowing this

‘My Tristan is alive, through love of mine.’

Out of our loving and the joy it is

I give this golden apple of the sun;

Beloved, take it, though it once was his . . .

Marc’s . . . it is yours, I kiss it for a sign,

Kiss it for my sake, my beloved one.”

So Tristan took the fruit, and as he took

An aged crone beside the fire awoke

In the dark settle in the chimney nook,

And whimpered: “Ai, my little grandchild’s late,

And I’m forgotten being palsy-strook;

My breath is shocking and my heart is broke.”

Tristan slipped sidelong thence and out at gate.

But being by himself he thought, “Alack,

I cannot take the gift that Marc has given

(Doubtless with passion), I must give it back.

How could I live forever without her?

We are two wild-duck in a single track

Bound to a mere whose reeds are tempest driven

But we are utterly one amid the stir.”

So, when he next met Isolt in the hall,

He said: “I cannot keep your precious gift.

We are each other’s, let us share in all,

Living or dying, O beloved heart.

Love is most royal, without self, or thrift,

Or wisdom, or concern for what may fall,

Beyond the longing for the counterpart.

“But Isolt, sweet, when first we plotted here

We tricked King Marc, that on his marriage night

He drank the philtre that makes people dear,

With Brangwen, not with you: and that offence

Leaves Brangwen sorrowing in love, and drear

With miseries of shame: it would be right

To give this fruit to her in recompense.

“But I refuse a life you cannot share:—

Therefore let Brangwen eat the fruit and live.”

Isolt agreed and calling Brangwen there

They gave the fruit to her, and Brangwen took.

Brangwen the sweet-faced woman with brown hair;

Eternal life, but peace they could not give

To her whom Love’s devouring fever shook.

All day the gentle Brangwen pondered long

Trying to dare, but checked by shame-facedness,

Then Love, which ever ventures and is strong

Drove her to presence of King Marc to speak.

“O King,” she said, “Forgive me if I wrong

Custom or rule in daring to address

Your Majesty uncalled: I do not seek

“Aught for myself, but humbly offer you

This fruit which makes immortal him who eats

Immortal, as the shining retinue

Of bringers of the Light of God to earth.

All sickness flesh of mortal ever knew

Fades from the eater of these living sweets.

It is for you: man cannot share its worth.”

Then Marc, in taking Brangwen’s gift, was sure

That Isolt had betrayed him to the full,

Loving another someone beyond cure.

He said, “I thank you, Brangwen, for this gift.

Life is a precious boon, if Love endure.

This way and that the angry passions pull;

Many are eager that the end be swift.

“I shall remember that you gave this thing,

And how you gave it, and be ever proud

That subject has so reckoned of her King.”

Then carrying the gift he left the hall

And anguish from the poison of the sting

Wrought in him till he wept with forehead bowed

Nor heeded whither he was bent at all.

But at the last, he sat beside a brook

And lo, beyond, a little seven year lad

Was weeping with such grief his body shook

Choking with sobs and moaning in between

That Marc, remembering childish sorrows, took

Pity, and asked, what misery he had?

What bitterness had happed to cut so keen?

Then the child answered “Mother’s going to die,

So Doctor says, of weakness; when she’s dead

Bran says that she’ll be somewhere in the sky

Where she can never talk to us, nor see.

And Father beats when Mother isn’t by,

When drunk, he’s beaten me until I’ve bled.

But Mother’s kind: she makes him let us be.”

“But, Courage,” said King Marc, “and lead me, straight,

To where your Mother lies;” then, being brought,

He paused beside the broken cottage-gate

And said, “Go swiftly: make your Mother eat

This Fruit of Living ere it be too late.”

The lad ran to the cottage swift as thought.

And laughter followed after, that was sweet.

Then the King turned for home, no longer blest,

No longer home, but now the tragic place

Of passionate love’s betrayal manifest.

But deeper sorrows than his own were bare,

The inmost ache within the mortal breast,

The pitiful child’s crying of the race

For comfort of a soul no longer there.

And in his madman’s rage, he fashioned bows,

And pointed arrows in the flame, and slew

The red stags of the mountain and their does,

The wolves of the mid-forest and their crew;

He killed, and flung their bodies to the crows,

But took their skins, and pricking with a thorn

Wrote on them in his blood his love forlorn.

Then, shrieking like the she-wolf gaunt and dire,

He would run raging like a fiend in hell,

Thro’ berry-bramble, gorse and forest-fire,

Hunted by love remembered but too well;

Love gone and living torment of desire:

Then dropping wretched he would rock with pain

Weeping for Isolt gone to Marc again.

Thus in a madman’s misery he dwelled

More than a year, then, on a summer night,

He wandered from his cavern and beheld

The moon in heaven beautiful with light,

And saw the glowing dog-rose many-stelled,

And joy returned to him: he wept that things

So beautiful should bless this world of stings.

And as he wept, his spirit was aware

Of joy within him, lightening his mind

To marvels that had lain un-noticed there;

Custom had made him deaf and passion blind.

But now the universe was riven bare,

The very grass was singing from the ground,

The life within him carrolled at the sound.

The sallow clover-clusters tinged with red

Were rooted in immortal life and spoke

Of earth and living beauty, wine and bread,

That yet are starry in their mortal yoke;

The hairy and dark-crimson basil shed

Wisdom and peace: a moth with jewelled eyes

Perched on his hand and sang of Paradise.

And all the glittering dusts upon his wings

Expanded and contracted singing too

Their unison and joy as living things,

The unison and joy that Tristan knew.

Life flowed within him from eternal springs.

“O Heaven,” he cried, “I am so gulfed in bliss

Burn me away and let me live in this.”

But, in his joy, a flash of sorrow came:

“This, being dream, will vanish with the night.”

But lo, the morning touched the East with flame

The forest tree-tops shivered and grew bright

Cocks from the little tofts without a name

Cried, and the blackbirds leaped out from the thorn.

Intenser rapture came with day new-born.

For every waking bird and opening flower

And leaf upon the tree and four-foot beast

Cried out his exaltation in the hour

And brighter and still brighter grew the East

Then the great Sun strode up into his tower

And looked and laughed upon this world of men

This world of joy for all was singing then.

Then, from the forest of old, lichened oak

That had so often bowed before the blast,

Leaf-crowned immortals in procession broke;

Tristan beheld the spirits who outlast

Men, ravens, trees; they smiled on him, they spoke

Those spirits of the waters and the woods,

Whose presence sanctifies the solitudes.

Brown-limbed and starry-eyed the Queens of hills

And Kings of glens came, and the Nymphs who rule

Brooks, lipping pastures glad with daffodils,

Or water from the chalk up-bubbling cool;

And spirits of the Peace whose beauty fills

Shy places, that the comer kneels in prayer

That the eternal felt may bless him there.

And lesser spirits, lovely or austere,

Came from the summer bracken and the heather,

The speedwell, harebell and the mouse’s ear

And water-guarding reeds with tossing feather

And fox-gloves, that the humble-bee holds dear

All these he saw, all Summer’s queens and kings,

Followed by mortal troops of forest-things.

The red-tongue-lolling wolves out of the rocks;

Badgers that root the wasp-nests and the bees;

The kindreds of the poultry-murdering fox;

Stoats from the barren, squirrels from the trees:

And solitary birds and birds in flocks,

Curlews, and little snipe that in the spring

Make heaven noisy with their whinnying.

And there were otters from the mere, and voles

Out of the brook, still nibbling at the cress,

The herons who stand fishing in the shoals

Watching the shadows in the glassiness;

And Kingfishers as bright as blazing coals

Burning blue skimmings where the minnows rise

And glittering winged green-gleaming dragonflies.

All these went pressing up the Ancient Way

And Tristan followed, for a Summer King

Said, “Follow, Tristan; all rejoice to-day,

The lost make merry and the broken sing.”

Within the rampart on the hill-top lay

A sheltered field, stone-mossy, scantly grassed,

To this those singers and rejoicers passed.

There they formed circle, but as waiting still

For something greater that should crown the hour;

Joy made the spirit within Tristan thrill

Rapture was his again and peace and power

And all were singing on the holy hill

Bird, beast and spirit, grass and mossy stone,

Joy, yet foretelling greater joy unknown.

And then upon the summit of the year

So burning blue, so crooning with the dove,

Nature herself swept thither with her spear

Nature the naked swiftness, fierce as love,

With mad eyes full of lightning, striking fear,

Hawk-winged she was, wing-footed, antler-helmed,

Compact of joy that drew and overwhelmed.

“Spirits and subject creatures all,” she cried,

“In this mid-summer hour the ruling sun

Sends rapture into every heart, full tide,

Even now his glory quickens every one.

Sing for mid-summer and the full year’s pride

And sunlight flooding.” At her word they sang

Bird, beast and spirit till the forest rang.

Then Tristan, leaping to her, caught her hand,

And cried, “O passionate swiftness, strike and kill . . .

I cannot care, being so sown with sand,

But, lovely fierceness, first declare your will;

Null me to dust, but let me understand . . .

What are you, fiery beast or goddess? Tell.”

Then Nature’s voice made answer like a bell.

“I am so swift, that mortals think me slow;

I am so patient, mortals think me dead;

I am too little for men’s eyes to know,

Too vast for what I blazon to be read;

Too jubilant with energy for woe;

Too truthful in my justice to be fierce.

All men must suffer, or annul, my curse.

But you, forsaken soul, by passion burned

Into one hunger, being daft and driven,

Bitten by watch-dogs, outcast, outlawed, spurned,

To mortal nothingness, shall now have Heaven.”

Then Nature told him all and Tristan learned.

The tale of Changing, never young nor old,

Dust into man and angel, clay to gold.

Then, having told, she sped, and Tristan went

Back to his cave, but trembling with such peace

As made his spirit seem omnipotent . . .

He wrote what Nature told, he could not cease

Though the moon rose, and southt, and westward leaned

And morning stars beheld him as he wrought

Burned into beauty by consuming thought.

All summer long, from day dawn until night,

The glory of the poem kept him glad,

So that he heeded neither wet nor bright.

Nor the rank chitch, the only meat he had.

But beauty welled from out him in delight

As from the hollow in the chalk the cool

Water comes bubbling to the sunny pool.

Till, when the summer waned and leaves were dying

To brown and red, and evening mists were chill,

And yellow crabs had fallen and were lying,

And morning frosts were white upon the hill

And heaven sighed with flocks of migrants flying

On Summer’s heel, Tristan arose and said

“Isolt must hear these poems I have made.”

So forth he went, a ragged, starving thing

Gaunt as a famine, staring as an owl,

His matty hair and beard like tangled string

His body burned like brick, his tatters foul.

On Severn bank he heard a church-bell ring

For the first time for months, the sound of man.

Then in the dusk an evening hymn began.

Then, lowing as they loitered home, the cows

Came swaying up the lane before a hind

Who whistled ballads of the milking house,

And tears of very joy made Tristan blind.

His living soul was come out of its drowse

Of love and madness, he was Man again,

Who had been mad as any fiend in pain.

Southward he went, until, behold, ahead

The river and the palace of the King,

The courtyard and the stag-hounds being fed,

And horses on the cobbles clattering

And Isolt, too, and Marc, like lovers wed

That morning, there together, entering in

After their gallop on the windy whin.

He knew them, but none present recognized

Himself, the wreck with bracken in his beard,

Him the dogs barked at and the cats despised

And women shrank from and the children feared.

The porters marked him closely and surmized

He came for scraps, they watched he did not steal

A bone from any stag-hound for his meal.

Then Kai, the steward, flaunted to the gate

To bid the porters close it on the throng;

And, seeing Tristan, asked, “Why do you wait?

You, dirty gangrel? Off where you belong.”

And Tristan said “I come to supplicate

Leave to approach Queen Isolt, and to sing

One poem to her from this pack I bring.”

Kai looked upon the written skins, and frowned

And said “But that His Majesty has bidden

That poets shall find Cornwall friendly ground,

Such skins as these should go upon the midden,

And you, yourself, be hunted by the hound

Over the border . . . I will take your pack

In, to King Marc. Await my coming back.”

Soon he returned and said “The King has glanced

At some of all this scribble: your request

To see the Queen cannot be countenanced.

She sees no lazar smelling of the pest.

The prospects of your verse might be enhanced

Were yourself cleaner; but the King, even so

Dislikes it. Take your rubbish. Kindly go.”

Marc passed upon the instant and said: “Stay,

You Severn poet, though I cannot care

For what you write, you must not go away

From this my palace, guerdonless and bare,

Give him a cloak and wine and victuals, Kai;

And for your journey westward, take this purse.”

Then Tristan flung it from him with a curse.

“No, Marc,” he said, “I am Tristan, come again

To win back Isolt to me if I can.

Let Isolt tell me if I come in vain.

Let Isolt choose between us, man and man.”

“Tristan,” Marc said, “I vowed you should be slain:

Hunted and torn to pieces by the hounds

If you were seen within my Kingdom’s bounds.

You have wrought harm enough in Isolt’s life;

You have disgraced her, you have brought her pain.

She has renounced you and is now my wife.

You shall not look upon her face again.

If you attempt it, boy, the hangman’s knife

Shall have you into quarters in the yard.

Now you shall leave this Kingdom under guard.”

Then the guards, closing on him, dragged him thence,

Bound him, and flung him in a cart, and drove

Over the frontier to the forest dense

Where slink and savage wild wolves used to rove.

Then, flogging him, they left him without sense

And so returned: the rime-frost striking cold

Revived their victim lying on the mould.

And limping on, at dusk he reached the place

So beautiful when it had held and shrined

Their summer love together, Isolt’s grace,

And all the ecstasy of being blind

To all things but the beauty of a face.

Autumn had wrought her change, the bower now

Was sodden grass and leafless hawthorn bough.

There, with a flint and rags, he lighted fire

And burned his poems, all, except the last

That was the song of Nature and Desire,

And of Eternity and Time long past;

Of Doing, Good and Ill, and of its Hire

That never sleeps, but waits, and has its Turn;

This, being Isolt’s song, he could not burn.

Daylong he crooned it until even-fall,

Praying for Death to come to give him peace;

And Autumn chilled, until the oak trees tall

Had dropped the last brown shred of summer’s fleece,

Then the snug dormouse curled into a ball

Deep under knotty roots in nibbled wool

And silent-footed snow came beautiful.

All winter-long he wandered, living hard,

On roots and dulse and mussels of the rock

And grain forgotten at the thrashing-yard

And barley-porridge that the fattening stock

Left (or the upland swineherd did not guard)

And green cow-parsley thrusting from the snow

And other pasture such as thrushes know.

Then Spring began again and at the stir

Of Earth’s green fire thrusting into leaf

Again old passion pricked him with the spur

And April’s beauty only added grief.

April was only beautiful through her,

But rocking in his woe the tune took power

Nature and he were knitted for an hour.

And living beauty ridded his despair

Till joy compelled him to arise and sing

The song that Nature taught him to its air

That pierced like the green fire of the Spring

Clear as a challenge rang his singing there

The rabbit-bucks crept cock-eared out of holes

And stags came tip-toe upon velvet soles.

Still louder rang the challenge of the song

The great, white, black-eared cattle rowsed and came

The bull’s chin chiselling as he licked his thong

His brooding eyes alight with sullen flame

The stallion, whickering answer, snapped his thong

And ran to hear: and from the marsh the geese

Trumpeted out to birds the end of peace.

And ducks out of the pond, and cock and hen

Flapped and took wing at hearing of the call

Sheep from the moors turned thither, hogs from pen,

Horses at ploughing, hunters in the stall,

And now it arrowed in the hearts of men,

It struck in Isolt’s heart the while she wove,

In King Marc’s palace, tapestries of love.

And at the sound she said: “That song of power

Is Tristan calling me: I inly know

That here begins the striking of the hour;

The ebbing ends and here begins the flow,

To sweep us on its crest.” She left her bower

And caught her horse and galloped to the cry

That seemed to draw the winds out of the sky.

And in the forest beast and hurrying beast

Thronged to the singing; birds from bough to bough

Flitted like blackbirds to the cherry feast;

Rapine and mating both forgotten now.

There she found Tristan singing, facing East

Ringed by the birds and beasts that crooned and swayed.

As Nature’s song went ringing down the glade.

Then, flinging from her horse, she passed the throng

And cried: “O Tristan, I have come again . . .

Forget that we have wrought each other wrong

We are as one as western wind and rain.

Forget my cruelty and teach your song

And let us sing together, you and I

And be away together in the sky.”

And then they sang together until space

And Time were over for them: Dinan’s son

Rapt by the song to that enchanted place

Heard their two voices merging into one

And saw the lovers drawing face to face,

Shining with beauty such as seldom shines

On faces, here, where roses have such spines.

Men never saw them more, but Dinan’s son

Gathered those relics of the fallen gear

And bore them to the Saint within the Dun

Who sent for precious woods and wrought a bier

Inlaid with goldwork gleaming like the sun

And laid the relics on it and with prayer

For those two lovers’ souls displayed them there.

They lie there still within the holy shrine

And lovers sick with loving go to pray:—

“O God of Love, be such love hers and mine

As to touch Life that nothing can decay

And be at one forever and so shine

Singing forever, blessing sorrowing men,

Like these immortal ones, Amen, Amen.”

Then the three sons debated how to spend

Each one, his heritage; first Simkin spoke:

“I’m not for farming, here at the World’s End:

The bailiff can do that; myself am fixed

On Science, to attempt some happy stroke

To make synthetic Man’s Flesh which will do

Whatever menial jobs we put it to.

Flesh is but hydrogen and carbon mixed.”

Then Tomkin spoke: “A beautiful resolve,

And yet less beautiful than what I plan,

I hope to catch the electrons that revolve

Within the excited brains of splendid men

And make an Essence of the Soul of Man.

Injecting this will make the silly sane;

The normal splendid: it will kindle brain.

That done, perhaps I’ll think of farming then.”

Jack said, “And I, who am a Business Man,

Reject your plans, and farming, which will leave

The practisers more poor than they began.

I shall go Citywards to Stocks and Shares

To venture at a profit and achieve.

Then, having money, haply I’ll finance

Your Flesh and Spirit ventures, and advance

This farmstead for week-enders with cheap fares.”

They went to work: then, on a holiday,

Spent at the ruined farm, Jack said, “The Press

Mentions our Barrow on the Roman Way,

And quotes the old Wives’ Fable that within

There sits a giant in a golden dress.

Let’s dig the Barrow open to make sure.”

“Right,” said the brothers, “Practice is the cure

For theories of all sorts: let’s begin.”

So, out upon the Antient Way they drove.

There was the Barrow forty feet aloft;

Beeches were green about it in a grove;

Rabbits had burrowed deep into its sides.

The brothers settled on a site and doffed

Their coats and collars, then their swinging picks

Rang on the scattered flints with little clicks.

Blisters made bubbles on their fingers’ hides.

Three days they dug into the Barrow’s heart

The shepherd on the downland thought them mad

Then, upon sunset, roofing fell apart

The Sun shone in upon a central cave

There sat a mighty Bone Thing, golden-clad

A skeleton, gold-helmeted, who grinned

Sitting below the beech-roots and the wind;

Kingly, tho’ fifteen centuries in the grave.

Then Simkin said “So the tradition’s true . . .

Cro-Magnon skull . . .” And Tomkin: “He is big.

Look, on the bone, the markings of the thew” . . .

And Jack, “This gold will speedily be ours.

A happy end to a successful dig.”

Then Simkin said: “Synthetic flesh would go

Well, on these bones: a looker-on would know

The kind of chap he was, and all his powers.”

Then Tomkin said “If you would clothe his bones,

I’d squirt Synthetic Spirit in his veins,

Then he would speak, I think, in monotones,

And tell us something precious about dates.”

But Jack said “Brothers, after all our pains,

Let’s cover him until the morning: then

Have in the Press and Moving-Picture men

And also charge admission at the gates.

But first, our duty is to take the gold,

It is not safe to leave it as it is.”

He took the armour, fold on gleaming fold

Leaving the rib-bones open to the air.

He said “Collectors will be mad for this

Authentic armour fetches any price

And no such armour will be offered twice.

To-morrow we’ll be famous everywhere.”

That night he clamoured to invite the Press,

Simkin and Tomkin checked him as they toiled

Making in test-tubes many a smelling mess,

Or at a wire-end a spitting spark,

Or violet glowings from the wires coiled.

They met at breakfast-time with amplest store

Simkin had outer husking, Tomkin core;

Jack was by much less cheerful than at dark.

“You know,” he said, “this making flesh and soul,

Is going far: I’m not a squeamish man . . .

But in the play the Robots took control . . .

Besides, it’s witchcraft, which is counted wrong

By every people since the world began.

The Witchcraft Statutes are not yet repealed . . .”

“Rats,” Simkin said, “The plough is put to field.”

“Bunkum,” said Tomkin. “Up, and come along.”

So out they went along the dewy grass

Up to the Barrow where the giant sat

Bone upright like the warrior that he was.

Tomkin took off his jacket, rolled his shirt,

Simkin upon the skullbones set his hat.

“Come, Father Noah,” Tomkin said, “At last

We’ll get authentic datings of the past.

First body, Simkin. Then the Soul with squirt.”

So Simkin wrought his wondrous chymic clay.

The figure, like an image made of wax,

Stared listlessly along the antient way.

“You’ve made him like a warrior,” Tomkin said.

“Now for the soul, to stir him in his tracks.”

But Jack in terror cried, “No, not the last . . .

This creature is so awful and so vast . . .

If once you give him life he’ll smite us dead.”

“Rubbish,” said Simkin, “If we give him life

It will be elemental in its form;

If fractious you can stick him with a knife.

Go on with Spirit, Tomkin, fill the gland.”

“No, no,” Jack pleaded, “you will raise a storm.”

“Bosh,” Tomkin said. “Now for it . . . Look at me.”

“Mercy,” Jack pleaded, “Let me climb a tree

I would not watch it for all English land.”

“Get up your tree,” said Tomkin, “And be still.”

Jack climbed a little beech tree: Tomkin took

Transmitting wires for the vital thrill

To make the giant lively: Simkin helped.

“When I count Three,” said Tomkin, “You can look.

One . . . No, the wire’s jammed. Two . . . There’s a short.

Now the thing’s working . . . waken up, old sport,

Three . . . there she goes.” Jack cowered down and yelped.

And lo, a marvellous thing, the figure stirred

It trembled, then its mighty jointings cracked,

Bones grided in their sockets, as they heard.

Then the thing stood upon its feet and breathed.

Nothing of living man his glory lacked . . .

He strode into the sunlight, facing east,

At every pulse his majesty increased

He stood like light in something glowing sheathed.

Then, looking at the Sun, the figure spoke

Meanings, not words: his hearers understood.

Like morning in their minds his meaning broke:

“O Sun that I have worshipped: Sun that brings

The living green upon the wintry wood,

Sun that brings thought into the barren mind,

Sun that puts beauty into hearts unkind,

Lord of all Life and Order, King of Kings,

I once more look upon you and obey

The call to Likeness with the Force that sends

Poetry in the shining of the ray

And Wisdom in the summer of your touch.

All Energy and Beauty are your friends

Your fires shout for rapture but confess

A power supreme above their mightiness

Who captains Heaven and many millions such.

I have been buried long and now awake,

I who was Arthur’s comrade long ago.

Man is no longer manhood but mistake.

O spirits of the Morning, come like fire

Come, Arthur, from the dead; let trumpets blow.”

Then, lifting to his mouth his mighty hand,

He cried “Come, comrades to this holy land

O Light breathe Light upon this land’s desire.”

Once he called thus, and all the trees stood still;

Twice he called thus, and all the air grew tense;

Thrice he cried thus, and over Barrow Hill

A rush came, like the coming-by of birds,

As spirits never seen by commonsense

Gathered, and gazed, and gleamed upon the view

Waiting, calm-eyed, for orders what to do

From some great trumpet call transcending words.

The brothers saw their many coloured wings

Fold, on their breasts: their beauty was so calm

Each spirit seemed a King of many Kings.

They came to carry light to human souls.

None of those victors carried sword, but palm.

The brothers knew that Arthur’s comrade’s cry

Had called to England lights that cannot die

Beauties and powers wearing aureoles.

And then . . . what then? . . . the warrior’s figure died.

The body drooped, as all the aged bones

Dropped into dust upon the downland side.

Nothing was there except a chymic mess

The Barrow’s tumbled earth and scattered stones.

Then the three brothers heard a cry begin

“Open your doors and let the new life in.”

And skylarks rose and sang in nothingness.

Eleanor said: “The wind blows bitter chill . . .

Will you go out?” King Henry said, “I will.”

Eleanor said: “But on so black a night . . .

Will you still go?” He said, “I take delight . . .

In these wild windy nights with branches swaying

And the wolves howling and the nightmare neighing.”

She said “May I come, too?” “But no,” said he;

“No, for at night, if robbers set on me

I can defend myself . . . I could not you

In the pitch darkness without retinue.”

Eleanor said, “Why is it that you go

Thus, and alone?” He said: “You cannot know.

Leave the King’s secrets: let the fact suffice;

Duty demands it and I pay the price.”

While Henry reached his sword-belt from the ledge

She pinned a tassel in his mantle’s edge,

Henry went swiftly in the roaring night

Eleanor saw her token glimmer white.

She followed down the hill, along the brook,

Just seeing by the clue the way he took.

He reached the forest where the hazels swayed . . .

Her soul was too intent to be afraid.

He pushed within the forest and was gone

But still among the scrub her token shone.

In the blind forest many trackways led

The hazels swayed, the token shewed ahead.

And as she followed she untwined a skein

Of silken floss to lead her out again.

The gale roared in the branches: the beasts shook

Not knowing which direction the step took.

Eleanor knew: she followed thro’ the night

King Henry’s mantle with its patch of white.

A long long way she followed: but at last . . .

A clearing in the forest sweetly-grassed

With apple-trees in blossom that the gale

Tore and flung forth; the token glimmered pale.

Beyond the apple-garth a little house

Stood, shuttered close among the tossing boughs.

Light shone from out the bower window-chinks;

Eleanor crept as cat-like as the lynx.

The white patch lingered at the door: she heard

A signal knock: within doors someone stirred.

All stealthily and still as though for sin

The door undid and Henry passed within.

Then the lock turned and Eleanor crept near.

In the gale’s roaring she could nothing hear.

Yet near the door a fragrance in the air

Told that a red rose had been crumpled there.

Then in the breaking storm a wild moon shewed

The fashion of that secret wood abode.

The windows high: each crevice tightly shut.

Over the lintel-piece a rose was cut . . .

Eleanor crept about as a cat creeps

In evil midnights when the master sleeps.

No dog was there: no sign of life was there,

Save the faint smell of roses in the air;

And hours passed and hurrying showers passed.

Eleanor watched what fish would come to cast.

Then suddenly, before the East grew gray

The bolt withdrew to let the King away . . .

Eleanor had but time to crouch and hush

Close in the green of a sweet-briar bush.

She heard no word, but someone whispered close

In the King’s ear, a someone like a rose.

And white arms, with their clinking bangles, drew

The King’s head downward in a long adieu.

Eleanor watched, but, lo, the patch of white

Was gone, that should have led her through the night.

Yet following on his steps she saw his frame

Retread in front of her the way he came.

And suddenly she saw him halting dead:

His scabbard’s end had caught her guiding thread.

She heard him snap it, but she inly knew

He had not guessed the thread to be a clue.

Afterwards Henry hurried, for the day

Came swiftly, now the storm had blown away.

And lo, the beanfield sweet and blackbirds waking

Leaping from hedge and setting brambles shaking,

Eleanor decked herself in all her pride,

All that had graced her as King Henry’s bride.

“Were you out late?” she asked. He answered, “No . . .

It was not midnight when we rose to go.

These midnight councils seldom sit for long.”

Eleanor hummed a merry scrap of song.

She went into her turret and undid

Her chest with iron bandings on the lid.

She took a drowsy and a biting draught

And mixed them both and as she mixed she laughed

“This is as heavy sleep upon the life . . .

And this is cutting as an Eastern knife,

Together they will still the April grace

Of Mistress White-Arms in the rosy place.”

She put the potion in a golden flask,

King Henry’s gift, and went upon her task.

King Henry asked her, “Whither are you bound?”

“On charity,” she said, “my daily round . . .

The Christian charity I must not spare

To those poor women lying suffering there.”

He said, “God bless your charity.” And she

Replied “Amen,” and went forth quietly.

She visited her sick with bread and wine,

Then searched the forest for her silken sign.

She found the floss still clinging, leading in.

“The hunt is up,” she said, “The hounds begin.”

The forest was all thicket, but the lane

To tread was blazoned by the silken skein.

Though it was dark in covert, her delight

In what her spirit purposed gave her light.

Then lo, the clearing, and the little house

So fair among the blossomed apple-boughs

And once again her spirit was aware

Of midmost summers’ roses present there.

Within the house she heard a woman sing.

Eleanor knocked the signal of the King.

The chain undid, the bolt was drawn, the key

Turned, and the door was opened, it was she . . .

A girl more beautiful than summer’s rose

That in the mid June’s beauty burns and glows;

A golden lady graced from foot to tress,

With every simpleness and loveliness,

Who, in the second when she saw the Queen,

Knew that her Death had come, for what had been.

Eleanor like a striking python seized

That golden child and dragged her as she pleased.

“O darling of the King,” she said, “Behold . . .

I, who am Queen, have brought this flask of gold,

Also the common hangman and his crew.

I, being royal, give a choice to you.

Either you drink this poison, and so end . . .

Or I will call the hangmen who attend

And they shall strip you naked and so hoot

And beat you to the Woodstock gallows-foot

Where they shall hang you: choose, then, sweetest heart.”

The girl beheld Death present with his dart.

The present Death with which man cannot strive.

Death that makes beauty be no more alive.

And is so strange the hot blood can but shrink.

“Threaten me not,” she said, “For I will drink.

I, too, am royal: and no way remains.”

She drank the golden flasket to its drains,

Eleanor dragged the body to the bed

“Lie there and welcome Henry, Golden Head.”

Then forth the grim Queen went, and licked her lips

To think of June’s bright beauty in eclipse

And Henry going to his love to find

The candle quenched that shone behind the blind.

“He will thrust in, and find her lying cold.”

So Henry did and found the flask of gold

And knew the Queen’s contrivance in the Death.

That night the Queen cried “Open . . . give me breath

Open the window, for I cannot breathe,

The golden roses’ tendrils wreathe and wreathe

Over my mouth. O who has crushed a rose

The perfume stifles me: unclose, unclose.”

They told her that she dreamed; but she replied—

“The roses choke me: open windows wide.

Someone had crushed a white rose or a red . . .

Can you not smell the perfume that is shed?

It comes so close, I cannot breathe the air.”

Thenceforward every day and everywhere

The grim Queen cowered from the haunting scent

Of roses crushed, of sweet rose-petals blent

Red, white and golden, coming where she trod.

Henry and Eleanor are now with God,

Whose Face is in all Beauty, as I say.

The pure White Nuns took Rosamund away.

Within their Quire they showed for many years

A little chest or scatolin of hers,

Painted with birds, that Henry once had given.

There the White Sisters prayed her into Heaven

That is the rest for lovers: there they wrought

A white-rose tomb for her from loving thought

So that none thought of her, nor ever will

Save as a lovely thing that suffered ill.

There every May the grass above her bosom

Is strown with hawthorn bloom and apple-blossom.

And on the wild-rose spray the blackbirds sing

“O Rose of all the World, O lovely thing.”

When I was turned eighteen there fell

This venture that I come to tell.

Out cubbing, Mother bruised her knee,

(Jumping a gap) against a tree,

So that she could not go to Fair

To buy us a new plough-team there.

She would not trust the bailiff . . . So

“John,” said my Mother, “you must go.

Here’s fifty pounds in notes. In town

The one safe tavern is the Crown,

Therefore stay there. A Fair-time stranger

Remember ’s probably a danger . . .

And with a horse to sell, he’s worse.

So John, be careful of your purse.

These Fair-time rogues can so persuade

I marvel any girl’s a maid.

Only last Fair time, two men came

To Squire’s Hall at Wick-on-Tame,

And said they’d come ‘to free the tanks.’

The girl (one of these dolls) said ‘Thanks,

Come in,’ and led them hand in hand

Upstairs to where the cisterns stand.

There one man said ‘Now you be gone

Downstairs and turn the water on,

And watch it as it runs away . . .

And, mind: the instant it turns gray

Or brown, call out to me at once.’

So down the silly creature runs

To sink, and turns on all the taps

And watched, if they’d run wine perhaps.

And up above, the two men ramped

Through every room and then decamped

While she was watching underneath.

Even the Squire’s spare false teeth

Were taken: and of course the men

And things were never seen again.

That shows how risky ’t is to trust:

Never believe unless you must,

And never then about a horse.

But there: you’re my wise boy, of course.”

I took the money and the trap

I drove to town without mishap

The day before the Fair began.

Many a gilded swing-boat van,

And horse-go-round, with varnished nags

And bright brass rails and flying flags

And burning furnace shedding glare

Stood by the pavement in the Square

And showmen fitted up the Fair

Heaving with spanners, lamming mawls.

The gipsy-women with bright shawls

And thick brass earrings and big plumes

Hawked posies made of autumn-blooms

Stolen from gardens on their way.

Towards the closing-in of day

As I was listening to the cries

Of men with pots and dames with pies

My good old Nurse from Tuttocks Rise

Came by: I stopped and greeted her

And edging outwards from the stir

We stood and talked by Grocer’s door

Of old times over long before,

Three minutes, I suppose, or four.

But thinking of it late and long

Both day and night, in hope of solving,

I think she set the ball revolving

That all the game began with her.

About some points I cannot err.

She heard Nurse name me: then she heard

My home, and things that had occurred,

And what had brought me to the Fair.

And though she stood before me there

Two minutes, in that crowded place

I never really marked her face.

Then, after sauntering up and down

Seeing the sights, I reached the Crown,

Made sure the nag was snug, and saw

Him happy, fetlock-deep in straw.

The sun was down, the lamps were lighting,

The Fair’s noise came like battles fighting:

The Cheap Jack’s cries, the songs and shouts,

And brazen patter from the touts

Arose and lifted lad and girl

Into the mad steam-organ’s whirl.

It being time, I went to sup.

And at the cheese, the maid came up

And said that someone wanted me.

So, wondering who this could be,

I went into the hall, and there

A girl with two long plaits of hair,

A school-girl, not eleven gone,

Came up and said, “O, Mr. John,

Please, sir, but would you come anon . . .

To see your sister for a minute?”

“Why, girl,” I said, “The Devil’s in it . . .

I have no sister . . . never had.”

She said, “But please, sir, I was bade

To bring you to her, if you’ll come.”

“But who are you? Whence are you from?”

I asked, and stared upon the child . . .

Her eyes were innocent, she smiled,

She was well dressed, and trim and clean,

“I’m Maggie Hill, from Tuttocks Green,”

She said, “and stopping for the Fair,

With Mrs. Roberts, Market Square.”

“Yes, and who sent you here to me?”

“Your sister, Mrs. Peck,” said she.

At Rector’s Close,” she said again . . .

“She’s Rector’s House-keeper at present.”

The girl seemed merry, straight and pleasant.

“All very well, my girl,” I said,

“But listen: some mistake’s been made.

Who was it you were sent to fetch?”

“Something or someone’s gone awry . . .

We’ll put it straight, so lead the way.”

The West still smouldered with the day

And Maggie prattled as she led

About the wonders overhead

The flares, the flags, the horses whirling

And pendulum-like swing-boats swirling.

We turned up Laurence Lane and there

An old house jutted, carven fair . . .

The Rector’s house as I knew well.

My leader never rang the bell.

She upped the steps and opened wide

The door for me to pass inside

Then showed me to a little room

Already darkened into gloom

And said “I’ll tell them that you’re here.”

Leaned back against the mantel-stone,

Or straining forward strove to see

What Rector’s photographs might be . . .

And saw the bare legs and the dates

Of football teams and rowing eights.

The last light of the sunken sun

Gleamed upon silver flagons won

At school or college: in a rack

Some briar pipes gleamed, cindered black;

Then the gleams died: but no one came

I struck a match and by the flame

Saw Rector’s books and college oar.

A gnat-pursuing bat went by

And from the Church two shuffling crones

Passed by upon the cobble stones.

Then, just as my resolve grew stronger

To wait there in the dark no longer

One came with candle down the hall

And shadows moved along the wall

Gigantic fingers screening light

A woman came, her face dead-white

And great dark rings of eyes: she laid

The candle down: “O John,” she said,

“Forgive me: I was so afraid,

I really could not come before.”

She turned again and shut the door,

And plucked the window-curtains to.

She said, “O John, I wish you knew

The joy it is to see you here.

And you are wondering, my dear,

Afterwards, Father disappeared.

He never knew nor saw again

Me the poor cause of so much pain.

He left the district and the past

Settled at Chance’s, and at last

Married your Mother and began

Anew, like every married man.

My Aunts would never let us meet.

But Life’s a very little street,

And people knock against each other.

Destiny brought me near my Brother

To house-keep for the Rector here.

And like a spy or pioneer

I’ve been to Chance’s, just to see

If Brother John resembled me.

I had not courage to go in.

I never meant to claim my kin . . .

But seeing you alone to-night

I hungered to, and thought I might.

And then I thought, but if I do

He’ll disbelieve; he’s certain to;

What man would credit such a tale?

Knew nothing of me: never knew . . .

And then I thought: it isn’t sin

Or fault, to tell him we’re akin . . .

But still, he may not care to know.

Or else will disbelieve, and so

I wandered to the Church and sought

My Husband out, for what he thought.

My Husband hadn’t doubts nor fear.

He said ‘Send Maggie round, my dear,

To ask the lad to see you here.’

Maggie’s the neighbour’s child: and now

I’ve told you all the manner how.

And now, my dear, since I have waited

These years for you as things have fated

Now let me hold you close and kiss.

Why, what a man my Brother is . . .

So tall: so powerfully made.

And all boy-modest and afraid.

Now come below: we’ve supper laid.

My husband’s waiting: come to sup.”

All full of honey is the cup

And bitter is the morning’s taste.

She slipped her arm about my waist

And led me to another room,

Lit by a lamp but still in gloom,

Close-curtained where a table stood

With glasses, dishes, plates and food,

A loaf, a cheese, and watercress.

And in one wall was a recess

From which a man (with a black beard)

Holding a jug of wine appeared.

“This is my husband, John,” said she.

He took my hand and welcomed me.

Somehow I didn’t like his eyes.

“Have you got over your surprise

At hearing you’d a sister here?”

He asked; “Come, sit, and make good cheer;

But drink, first, to the happy meeting.

Come, drink it to the dregs, no cheating,

It’s only claret, mulled. Come, Ann . . .

This John of yours is grown a man . . .

Here’s your glass, Ann; here’s yours, here’s mine.”

He leaned across and poured the wine.

And smiled, our glasses clinked, we drank.

Then surging billows rank on rank

Rose somehow out of wall and table

And all the room became unstable

And hummed a tune which droned and rose

And flooded as a river flows.

And I, within it, was as dead

Lapped within rising swathes of red

Thinking “This is great bliss . . . great bliss . . .”

I know not what the next thing is.

I was turned endlong, lifted, hauled

Up-ended, held, supported, mauled,

Why, where or how I had no notion

Save that there somehow was an ocean

Of great red surging waves about.

From vasty distance and with pain

I came to consciousness again.

I wondered at the dark and cold

And why I lay upon the mould,

And why the sky was over me.

Then in great sickness wearily

I forced myself to sit upright

And found myself all dressed in white

In woodland, in the middle night.

I marvelled, and was ill, and drowsed.

Then, as the drug passed off, I roused

And knew I had been drugged and stripped.

I was a pigeon plucked and clipped . . .

My money, clothes and shoes all gone.

The long white coat that I had on

Was Rector’s cricket-umpire coat,

Tied by the sleeves about my throat

But for that mercy I was bare.

I staggered out into the air

And knew not where I was, but knew

That I had fallen on a crew

Of thieves, in spite of every warning.

And what would happen in the morning

When Mother learned the kind of ass

Her well-belovéd first-born was?

How I had been a fool and taken

The simplest bait a knave had shaken.

Fifty pound bank-notes and my pride

Lost utterly: I sat and cried.

Still dizzy with the drug I trod

Out of the woodland to a road.

There, by the moonlight and a brook

I recognized the way I took

And knelt in the cool mud and drank

Like a parched horse and gave God thank

And drank again, and yet again

Like meadows in the May in rain.

And splashed my face, then tottered down

Bare-footed to the sleeping town

And as I went each stone beneath

Seemed full of thorn and foxes’ teeth,

And I was cold and sick and sad.

O friends, I was a sorry lad.

At that the church-clock sounded One.

And as the echoes ceased to stun

And no strokes followed, Nine or Ten

I thought “The light is not of men

But spirits: ghosts are walking there.”

I felt a pricking in my hair.

The light would now be dim, now glowing

Like candle-light when winds are blowing.

I shook to think of what thin crowds

Might there be flitting in their shrouds.

And then Clink, clink, I heard a pick

Strike stone and falling fragments click.

I said “Whoever works on stone,

It isn’t ghosts, but flesh and bone.”

So up I rose and crept anear.

Within the Chapel I could hear

Work of some sort, like an assault

With crowbars on a burial vault.

I crept right round it, to the door.

And all old tales, heard long before

Of body-snatchers, thrilled me through.

I trod the graves all wet with dew.

The chapel door was opened wide

And lantern candle-light inside

Wavered and made the shadows shake.

I crept. A muffled voice said “Take . . .

Catch hold your end. There. Got him? Hoist.”

The sweat upon my brows was moist.

But still, I peeped within to see

What all this midnight work could be.

I saw a man bent at a hole

Dragging with all his very soul,

Cursing, at something hard to drag,

A pick lay on a broken flag.

A lantern lit the scene: below

A voice said “Heave and make her go.”

And at the heave a leaden roll,

Corpse-shaped, came endwise from the hole.

And as the coffin jolted forth

A Newgate face, all fringed with swarth,

Peered from the hole: a man crawled out.

He said: “We won’t be long in doubt.

Cut open: where’s the chisel, Jack?”

They cut and bent the cover back

They held the light to the cut gash.

Jim said: “His Lordship’s not so brash

As when they put him in: but, look . . .

Gold rings and chain and golden crook

Empty him out, his noble nibs.”

A jawbone and some scraps of ribs

And dust and gold and femur bones

Were emptied out upon the stones

And those two ruffians with delight

Held up the gold against the light

And pawed the dust and scraped the lead.

“That’s all,” said Jack. “Now let’s to bed.

There’s more in this night’s work than beer.”

The moon had risen high and clear

Though waning, when they rose to go.

What prompted me I cannot know

But as they left the door I raised

One hand, and held them as though crazed

I cried “Why are you robbing me?

Restore my corpse’s property.”

I, the half-naked thing in white

Half seen in moon and lantern-light

Must have seemed walking-corpse or ghost.

The robbers bleated like the lost

Then they both screamed and darted past

Screaming, and as they ran they cast

Their takings from them, right and left.

And one thing, scattered from their theft,

Hit me: I picked it up: a ring

Set with a ruby for a king.

Before St. Laurence’ bell struck Two

I told my tale t’ Inspector Drew

He called his men, and by Two-twenty

They found that Rector’s house was empty . . .

Rector on holiday, my thieves

Gone, having sacked it, floor to eaves.

Maggie, the neighbour’s child and Ann,

My so-called sister, and her man

All gone, that three who kept a school

For teaching wisdom to a fool.

All vanished somewhere, not by train.

I never had my notes again.

Years afterwards, it chanced I saw

At trial in a court of law,

A man condemned for poisoning.

If I am sure of anything,

I’m sure the prisoner was he

Who wiled and drugged and plundered me.

And one poor woman bent with sobbing

Was Ann who lured me to the robbing.

Victims need never rage and curse,

Life’s justices will punish worse.

As for the robbers, Joe and Jack,

Who fled, they never ventured back.

They disappeared into the Fair

The better Christians for the scare.

The gold that they had scattered, proved

To be a crozier, chased and grooved,

A ring and crucifix and chain

Of some old Abbot who had lain

Down in the vault six hundred years.

Some Abbot Hayward it appears.

My ruby ring, as treasure found,

Was valued at a thousand pound

Of which eight hundred came to me.

I bought the best team that could be,

I gave the village-school a tea.

I bought my Mother all a store

Of things I’d heard her hanker for,

Beside a watch and silken gown.

I had the orphans out of town

For cake and sports: the rest I banked,

And so I ended, God be thanked.

About the ship Andromache the cyclone blew,

After heavy running they had to heave her to,

Seas broke green aboard her, men couldn’t keep their feet,

The weather main topsail parted at the sheet.

The topsail lifted and split to seven rags

That streamed like banners and bellowed like stags;

Buntlines and cluelines snapped like lady’s lace,

And snap at both the yardarms went the topsail brace.

They steadied on the lifts, but the lifts broke, too;

The topsail yard lifted and shook the frigate through;

The topsail yard lifted and the parrel gave . . .

And the yard went flying till the heart-strings clave.

Out it streamed to leeward like a wind-blown vane

Flogged its tattered topsail and thundered in again

Outboard at the rising, inboard at the ’scend

At each in crashing as though it were the end.

As the topmen struggled to bring it to a check

It struck on Robert Eadie and knocked him to the deck.

Fifty feet of timber with will and strength to strike

None of all the topmen had ever seen the like.

It was blind black midnight, blowing like the Pit,

The yard was flying with Death to whom it hit;

Roberts took a brace-end, bit upon it hard,

When the yard crashed inboard he leaped upon the yard.

Now he was above it, now he was beneath,

He bit upon the brace-end and kept it in his teeth;

Tattered topsail flogged him, the blind yard banged

The top said “Glory . . . he is born to be hanged.”

Roberts reached the yardarm and grovelled to the block,

The yard boxed compass like hands upon a clock.

Tongues of flying topsail licked away his skin

He rove his weather brace-end from outboard in.

Roberts bit the brace-end, and gathered as she swang,

Ready for the life-spring a second ere the bang;

As the yard crashed inboard he leaped into the top

The topmen snatched the brace-end and the yard came stop.

The topsail yard jolted, but the curb came taut,

They dragged it into harness like a mad bull caught.

Underneath a staysail she pointed to the blow.

Roberts and the topmen were piped below.

Perhaps she stood upon this very spot

Waiting the news, which of those hurtling peers

Winning the race should be her mortal lot.

One of the eight was Brutos, Prince of Troy.

Since then the world has aged three thousand years

Over their dust the rabbit shakes his ears

And sidelong falling peewits cry their joy.

Then King Berroc, my father, bade all men follow

Down to that beach of drowning; they hurried, they ran.

I, too, followed; and, lo, there, marvellous oarsmen

Pulling, like heroes to save their galley from wreck

A prince, clear-browed as a god, was captain of them.

White horses gleamed at the mast with gold starred brows.

Now they would draw away, then again drift shoreward.

I watched their battle with death, little hope was there:

Then darkness fell, I could watch no more, but went.

At midnight, my Father, coming in wet, with lanterns,

Told that the tide had swept them again to seaward,

But that the sea grew worse, that the wind had increased.

All night, in mind, I have watched that staggering ship

Of friendless strangers beating in vain against Death,

And prayed that she might escape. What ship can she be,

Green, having painted eyes, bearing gold hung horses?

Marvellous horses; white; like immortal horses?

Who is that prince with the steady hand on the helm?

These western islands never before beheld such.

There is a stranger here in my Father’s Council

The Elder, Lykaon, who comes from none knows whence

He, seeing that ship, was rapt to passionate tears,

He has beheld such, surely, in times long past.

All night the tumult of wind has cried with voices

“A change is coming, the old is blowing away.”

Spirits have ridden the darkness above the palace,

Spirits of Kings and Queens whom the land reveres still.

And lo, this morning, an oak-tree torn by the roots

Near the palace gates, has flung forth a golden crown.

These are omens and portents of change impending.

Indeed this summer is fraught with changes for me:—

My Father, having no heir, our island custom

Decrees, that I, the Princess, shall straightway marry

That prince who shall win the two-horse chariot race.

Princes will race on the Downs for me this summer

Arrogant princes, like Prince Conan of Eire;

Masterful princes, like Prince Erbin; or witless

Like Howel, of this side Severn, or capable,

And yet not thoughtful nor subtle, like Math of Kent;

Or loutish, like Llywarch, the half-bred Prince of Wye;

Or snakes like Cradoc of Cornwall, the viper pale.

Yet one of these, or another, will lash swift horses

Into the Straight, ahead, and will win me there

As the custom bids, and I shall be his till Death.

Queen, as my Duty bids; whether happy who cares?

The needs of the Kingdom count, not one woman’s want.

Moonlike and starry Spirit who guardest here

The difficult ways of women as they wed;

Save me from any of the men I fear,

The brute or fool or false that women dread.

Whatever life be in me let it spring

To help that rider fittest to be King.

And since a prayer may go up and down

The world of spirits seeking for a friend,

In all the markets of each starry town,

Until it find the helper to its end,

Grant that this find its Helper who shall strive

Urging that fittest, as the chariots drive.

And since those strangers helpless on the sea

Are like to women in unhappy Fate,

Grant that they come ashore where comforts be

That human love may stablish their estate;

And grant that thoughts of friends may make a peace

About this country till her story cease.

But here is Lykaon, who comes with strange tidings.

What is amiss, Lykaon? Has the ship foundered?

Welcome, sea-wanderer, to King Berroc’s Kingdom.

The King bids you and your fellows heartily welcome.

My brother, Paris the prince, visited Sparta,

And stole the wife of the Spartan King, Queen Helen,

And carried her thence in a country ship to Troy.

The Spartan King, with his brother, the King of Argos,

Gathered a fleet, encamped at Skamander mouth

And fought with Troy for the winning back of his Queen.

Nine years they fought, for as fire begins in grass

And creeps, till a gust take hold, when the fire lifts

Till the thorns and the gorses catch and the crackling leaps

Into the cedars and pines till the forest flames,

So warring spread from the city to distant tribes,

Hardly a city or island or tribe of men

But sent her strength to the war, for or against us.

I know not utterly how the Argives triumphed,

Those who could tell were killed, but we heard long after

A trader tell this tale of the Argives’ cunning:

They sent away some ships from their forted beaches

To make us think that their army was raising siege,

Then in the laxness due to our rapture at peace

Some of their picked men entered our city unknown

Disguised as our outland allies and hid themselves.

Then, in the darkness, the best of their spearmen ranked

A few at a time, unseen, near the western wall.

It was hot dark moonless summer with river mist.

Sentries and gate guards thought that the war was over.

Suddenly those picked enemies leaped and knifed them

And flung the Southern and Skaian gates wide open

And the waiting spearmen rushed and the wall was won.

Snatched spears and ran to the lane where the trumpets blew.

My father Priam was with us; we held the lane

That led to the Skaian gate, for some of our men

Had flung some hurdles across as a barricade.

We tore down doors, dragged settles, tables and benches

Onto this barricade, while the light grew greater

A clanging of bronze arose at the other gates,

And arrows with blazing tow fell over the wall.

Then a great, mad moody chief with a shield that gleamed,

Swift Foot Achilles, he who had slaughtered Hektor

And dragged his corpse round Troy at the chariot tail,

Thrust up the lane through the Argives followed by three

Red-plumed hill swordsmen: “Out of my way,” he shouted,

“Out of my way, you Trojans, Troy is now ours.”

He leaped on our barricade and over it, down

Stabbing, stabbing, stabbing, and at each stab mocking

Our stand was broken and Priam was stabbed, Troy lost.

Some of our men closed up round my wounded father.

We drew him out of the fighting into a house:

He said “The city is lost; rescue her glories,

The horses of God, the cloak on Athena’s shrine,

Run to Athena’s and to Apollo’s temples

O save those holy things from the Argive clutches,

We women and men must die, the city must burn,

Those splendours, gifts of the gods themselves must be saved.”

Then rallying at his death, a god spoke through him:

“I charge you leave me: save horses and cloak: a curse

On any who turns aside till those things are saved.”

So saying, he shook and drooped and his hands unclenched.

We ran, too late, for blue-scarved Locrian reivers

Were already breaking Athena’s temple doors.

Some of us turned to attack them, but I, with a few

Ran to the green grass close at Apollo’s temple

To save the horses before we could be cut off.

Friend, it was no light matter to save those horses,

They were mad with the smell of blood and the sight of fire,

They were biting the brazen chest-bands that bound them in,

And kicking the bronze shod stalls; they reared, they hennied.

When we got them out and had mounted, where go then?

Troy seemed surrounded, all of her gates were assailed.

But suddenly swift Achilles with red-plumed spears

Was on us, we fled, and the fire bright bronze of spears

Flashed by our eyes as we fled: the bronze of our friends

Clanged as they fell; and we rode at the northern wall

Since all other ways were barred: men seeing us pass

Struck at us cursing, that we were deserters flying,

And the women wailed, “God’s horses are leaving Troy.”

There was no way out of Troy but the rampart’s top.

We set the horses at that, and the horses knew,

They glared, and their hoofs struck fire, their nostrils snorted,

We cried as we lifted them on, they launched, they leaped

Up at the parapet, over the parapet.

And the Sun God, leaping, white bright fire from Ida,

Bore us up at the rocks that we did not perish.

The seven landed and gleamed and their nostrils flamed

And the temple guards leaped after and joined us there,

They buried their hands in the manes of harsh bright hair,

Together we scrambled down the rocks to the plain.

But there in the plain were the chariots and the lancers

Of Argives watching the sack: they saw us at once,

A troop of their lancers turned and the chariots turned

And as we galloped to northward, they, too, galloped:

We galloped into each other at Simois’ ford

Trampling the dimpling brook with its yellow iris

Staining the shallows with blood as we fought for life.

They killed us Asteropæus, Ilos, Hylas,

Three of our best, and three bright horses: we broke them,

We rode out clear from the ford: we were fifteen men

Riders and temple-keepers: we rode to the north.

We knew not whither to go among Troy’s allies;

Some said Apæsus, others the western mainland,

Others said back to Troy when the Argives have gone,

But I said “Friends, our chances of life are slender.

Look there to our right and front at the Argive horse.

Those green-scarved men are our enemies waiting us;

And behind us, look, we are followed: Lancers come.”

And indeed those Argive raiders had shut us in.

Swiftly we hurried the horses into the pens

Then we rallied the galley down on rollers

Into the sea, then leaped aboard as she floated

Ran to our oars, swift sculling and hoisted her sail.

There we were out in the ice-cold current driving

As Greeks came galloping into the water cursing,

Hurling their darts, dismounting and hurling stones,

But we were away, four horses and fifteen men.

I know how grim: I have sailed in those northern storms,

Those ice-cold blasts from the mountains, withering men.

Seas flying high on the islands, sails in tatters.

Friend, in my boyhood, I should have cursed Troy’s sackers

So that my hate should have gone like a living thing

Fastening into their lives as sickness fastens

Till they fell to ruin and died enslaved, cast, fallen.

In the grayness and wildness before the morning

The horses whinnied and, lo, a brightness lightened

Ship and tackling glowed like white-hot embers burning

In the furnace of a potter or a sword-smith.

And the horses screamed and all the cocks of earth crowed

And with clanging cries white fire-eagles lighted

Upon the yard and in unbearable blazing

The Sun God’s self, the destroyer of the darkness,

Spilled his Light and Health upon us, singing to us,

From the space among the horses at the mast-foot.

Comfort he gave us and healing: this was his song.

    Light follows darkness, friends: advance.

    The old thing dying gives new chance.

    Venture, for to the muscles’ ache

    The net comes gleaming in with take.

    Venture: possess the river pools,

    The wallows of the shag-browed bulls,

    The reeds of the lagoon, the sea

    Ruled by my lesser mystery;

    But take, and make your own, the grass

    Where yet no cornfield ever was

    Where wild mares run; oh make your own

    That fiery thing of blood and bone

    The Horse, for you shall live by him:

    The Blood Horse with the muscled limb,

    The kindling, startling, nervous eye,

    The vein-work wrinkling in the thigh,

    The bright skin that the foam-flecks stain,

    The tense head leaning on the rein,

    The bronze shod, rounded, thundering feet

    Running as wind runs over wheat,

    Running with other racing hooves

    To one great tidal face that moves

    White, under banners at the goals:

    And in the broad-loined mares with foals

    In deep grass when the cuckoo tolls,

    In these shall be your joy and wealth:

    Your pride shall be the grass in health,

    The plough-teams dragging the bright share,

    The cart-teams dragging wains that bear

    The sunburned bread in husk from field.

    Venture: the bitter bars will yield.

    Limitless the inheritance;

    Deathless the spirit-fields men till;

    Your Heaven and Earth are what you will.

I rode to the Idan glens in a day of Spring.

I rode to a gray-green wood where the stags were tame.

A wood where hunters and charcoal burners of Troy

Had never yet come: and there in the dusk I slept.

And painted Hunters of Heads from the Savage Lands

Caught me and bound my hands with their thongs of deer hide

Carried me thence to the sea with their bleeding spoils

Of dead men’s heads and horses and bronze headed spears

And sold me there to a pirate out of the North . . .

And my pirate sailed that hour and bore me thence.

This land is gentler to strangers than to her own.

Besides you carry means of coming to glory:

The gleaming stallions, the horses of the Sun.

King Berroc has no son, his heir is a daughter.

It is the land’s law, stablished here from of old

That an heiress shall be raced for upon the down

By unmarried princes driving in two-horse chariots.

Courage: Apollo brings you here for the race

So bring your horses ashore and harden them here

And race on the windy down for the lovely girl

And heritage here of the good King Berroc’s crown.

Apollo has brought you: venture for fame and state.

Sorrows oft bless those who endure to wait.

And out upon that track are Accident

Envy and Murder, and those littlest things

By which What Is To Be confuses Kings,

The Will of God confounding what man meant.

I saw those seven champions as they went

Out to the field . . . But now my hopes must be

Unuttered. Destiny decides for me

I, the Princess, abide the Fortune sent.

These are the seven Princes who compete:—

Erbin, who rules from Snowdon to the Dee;

Keen-witted as the eagle-cock is he,

And sudden in his mind as on his feet.

He drives two stallions, black as mountain peat.

His colours are a pale blue splashed with gold;

He means to be a story that is told,

Ambition is his spirit’s daily meat.

Then Howel comes, from Bredon, driving grays;

Blackhaired like Erbin but without the force;

A witless man, as hearty as a horse,

His colours, green. Then Cradoc comes with bays.

He governs moorland where the adder plays

And sea breaks upon Cornish rock; and he

Is fatal as the adder or the sea

White are his trappings, deadly are his ways.

Then, with brown horses, comes Prince Math of Kent

A trusty, merry, short, thick-builded man

Who takes life as it happens, without plan,

Each minute jolly and each nerve content.

Red and blue stripes his colours. With him went

Llywarch, his friend (in yellow), from the Wye,

Driving white fetlocked chestnuts that stepped high,

The prince a boor, the horses excellent.

Then Conan, from his limestone-scattered hills

Where rivers disappear in caves and run

Under the ground, unlighted by the sun

Or loiter where no fish-hook ever thrills:

He drives two roans; one kicks, the other kills.

Black are his favours and his battle flag.

Bald is he; coarse; swift-footed as a stag;

And casts his scurrilous slanders as he wills.

And Brutos drives the horses of the Sun,

The two white stallions saved from ruined Troy,

Each like a king-stag stepping to his joy

With challenging nostrils tense in question.

Their spirits and their limbs exult as one

They toss their brazen bits and fling aloof

The daisy-heads from each disdainful hoof

The scarlet that they bear Kassandra spun.

And now, beneath the hill on which I stand

Those seven teams are galloping: I hear

Below me, there, the tumult of the cheer

At some sharp struggle for the upper hand.

There they go leaping, there the spurting sand

Flies from the wheels and hoofs, and axles crash

And fallen horses kick their cars to stash

And someone dies that should have had my hand.

And there the man whose chattel I shall be

Through fatal slip, perhaps, in man or horse,

Through snatching at a chance by savage force,

Or by the ironic smile of destiny,

Will come to domination over me.

Now I am mine: within this quarter hour

I may have passed to Bully Conan’s power,

To Howel’s jokes, or Cradoc’s misery.

Unhurt, thank God, though the race is not yet ended,

I tell the little I know: and little is good.

I went to a point, midway in the race, to watch.

There was long, long waiting, I thought they would never come.

But at last the cheering sounded and round the bend

Came Howel, the green-clad prince, with his team of grays,

Galloping gallantly on with a ten lengths’ lead;

Then, second, Conan, in black with his team of roans;

Erbin, third, so close to the roans that the axles

Almost grazed at the bend: the Yellow Coat fourth

With high-stepping chestnuts, little likely to stay;

Then Math, in the Red and Blue Stripes, driving his browns,

A wonderful team, those beautiful, well-loined browns,

Compact, twin, powerful horses, timed like one.

Sixth was the White Coat, Cradoc; but still no Brutos.

Last, by a dozen lengths came my brother Brutos.

His horses gleaming indeed but in hopeless case,

They were left at the starting-post a neighbour said.

I was last long after that, then the chestnut team,

Yellow Coat’s team, pulled up on the rise, dead-beaten,

And the Green Coat driver, Howel, who drove the grays,

And had made the running throughout, slowed down and stopped

The rise of the hill made all of the drivers glad

To slacken the terrible pace and take a pull

I even hoped to be with them ere we finished.

But the long rise ceased, we came to the table land

Again the galloping hoofs went leaping from me

Conan leading a length, then Erbin’s blacks, then Math,

Cradoc a little behind them: even Cradoc

A dozen good lengths ahead of myself, alas.

And behold the Sun shone out, that the forest gleamed

I cried, “Apollo, O Lover and Lord of Troy

Apollo, come to the help of these your horses.”

And galloping there, lo, sweet, a twittering came.

Over my head was a flutter of tiny birds,

Linnets and scarlet finches and speckled thrushes

Gleaming, and urging forward and crying “Swift, Swift”

Delicate reed birds such as build among bulrush

And flag, and flowering reed in Skamander banks.

These, too, and the herons that watch in the Simois pool

And I cried “Lo, God sends help,” and a loud cry came,

“On, on, on,” and behold my brothers were there.

I knew them there in the air although all were changed

Into spirits so bright, so fierce, so splendid strong

I could hardly look; our father Priam like fire,

Hektor glowing with glory seizing the reins

And the others urging the horses On, On, On.

And the horses knew them and glared, their criniers hackled

The pæan of Troy rang out; then with sweet sweet song

Beautiful things rushed up to us out of the air,

Our Mother the Queen, so grave, so gentle sweet,

Andromache lovely as dawn, so wise, so fair,

Beautiful little Polyxena the fearless,

They shed white gleaming flowers and cried Hope conquers.

Then lo, there was sudden darkness and sudden redness

Over us all with our straining teams red clouds ran

Clouds full of harpies that screamed On, on, and darted

And struck at the teams they hated, and under the clouds

Glowing and splendid spirits struck back or warded

And the air rang loud with harps and with whirling wheels.

As winter wanderers lost in snow on Ida

Treading the beastless, birdless, manless loneliness

Beating the storm, knowing nothing but rock and snow

Suddenly reach an Edge and behold the sunlight

Lighting Troy and the sea and the holy islands

And the plain all bright with cities and grazing kine:

So, suddenly, as we galloped, behold, the brow

Of the hill, and below, afar the long, green Straight

With thousands on either side and tossing banners.

Then, with long leaping strides we swung to the valley

And galloping down the slope, lifting and tossing

I came to Prince Cradoc driving his failing bays

I saw his sinister milk-white meanness glitter

As an adder glitters at striking: I saw Death

Gleam in his face, as with all his failing powers

He lashed and swung his pitiful team to wreck me.

His axle gave and his pole was snapped across

He was flung to earth, and his horses swerved and screamed.

We were past and on, and suddenly lo, the Straight.

As a sailor running a northern tempest down

In a lifting gleam will suddenly see two islands

Beaten by roaring water and bursting sprays,

A narrow channel of safety between the two

And no time left but to steer the galley and hope;

So, into that roaring channel of tossing banners

And shouting and running men and blowing trumpets,

Our four swift galloping teams went thundering on

A flame in the horses’ hearts, a flame in our hearts,

Math, Erbin, Conan to beat in three short furlongs,

All three leading by lengths: and the Post in sight.

Then the horses cried Aha, and the thousands hushed.

The blackness of watching people suddenly stilled

The multitude made one face, one soul, wide-staring.

And as, in an April day, after northern storms,

A stillness falls upon Troy, and Scamander stays

Her roaring of spate, the sun shines, little flowers

Cover mountain and plain with colours and perfumes,

And Earth is still with the Spring, then, out of the South

A sighing comes in the air from birds returning,

And the cloud of the birds returning dims the sky.

Swans of the Lakes with their necks like launching spears

Wild duck thrusting the sky like to arrows with barbs,

And with crying and creaking of penns the flight comes

Stunning the ear with the rush and the roaring wings

So now, to that tense crowd, the rush of our cars came.

And lo, in a dozen leaps, I was racing Erbin,

Level with Erbin, up to his blacks, then past them.

There were two cars left ahead, Prince Math with his browns,

And Conan’s roans, our cars went leaping and rocking

With clicking of straining harness, with tearing hoofs.

As a temple bell, in a sunburned Asian land,

Will tinkle alone at some hot sunset hour

That ploughmen halting their plough unhook their oxen,

And hoers, shouldering hoes, turn shambling homewards,

Then another bell begins from another temple

And suddenly all the bells ring out together

Till temples rock, and the great bell in the tower

Stumbles into its clanging and drowns all other

With thunder of iron laughter or sullen order;

So now a boy’s cry sounded, then shouts, then crying,

Then all the thousands in pack gave tongue together

In thunder of voices “Come, Math,” “Erbin,” “Conan,”

“Math,” “Conan,” “Erbin”: I sickened, my eyes blinded.

Then a louder roaring grew, and behind me hoofs,

Mad hoofs galloping up, and a mad voice crying:

It was Erbin, making his effort; lo, his team

Alongside, creeping beyond me, and all the tumult

Of all his tribesmen crying, “Ho, Erbin, Erbin;

Erbin is beating them; Erbin is winning it; Erbin.”

Then all of the roaring changed to “Conan, Conan,

Conan will have it still. Conan will beat the browns,

Come on now, Conan: he’s beating the browns: he has it.”

I cried “Now horses of Troy: up: up together

Up, and be first, or die;” and the horses answered

“We’ll do it, O prince; if our bursting hearts burst not.”

Our four teams leaped to the finish, mad-eyed, mad-souled.

I saw the flag at the Post blow slowly upward

And the King’s crown gleam as he bent to watch the end.

Sweet friends, this Brutos married the Princess,

And when her Father died received the Crown.

He governed well his Kingdom on the Down

Bringing his enemies to nothingness.

He gave to women and the weak, redress:

To arts, encouragement and means to grow.

To men, his subjects, happy hearts to know

The spirits that en-noble Man and bless.

And when he died he was so great a King

That this most blessed England then was named

Britain from him (or so it has been claimed).

And he, being dead, was laid within a ring

Of great stones gathered where the skylarks sing.

Then they heaped earth upon the bondless stone

Thousands of years have made the place unknown;

The humping rabbit goes there: sheep bells ring.

The wind blows pure

His dust has made the heather-roots secure

The wild bees bless his dwelling with their drone.

When I was but a babe, my Father died

In the Great Death, with half his folk beside.

My Mother married with another man

A bitter time for me then soon began.

Not being wanted in my Mother’s home,

And hating him she loved, I used to roam

About the forest in that hilly land

Which the Great Death had utterly unmanned.

For I could wander all day long and find

No house with any dweller save the wind;

Chapels with red deer muzzling at the paint,

Still blue and gold, of some forgotten saint

And dog-rose thrusting past the carven piers

And altars where wild dogs killed the wild steers.

And skeletons of women dead of pest

With their long hair the chaffinch wove her nest.

There was a little town where all were dead

The winds jangled the church bell overhead

And cats came snarling: you may judge the joy

That Dead Man’s Land was to a little boy.

When I was nine years old, my mother’s mate

Said “He must go, this Richard, with his hate,

Off to my sister’s husband there, in Cheap,

To learn a Mercer’s trade and earn his keep

No longer lurk here skulking, eyeing me

With that glum hate which I am sick to see.”

So here I came to learn a Mercer’s trade

This is the fourteenth year that I have stayed:

The business droops, the Mercer is now dead

His half-mad widow governs here instead.

Her hatred hinders me from chance or wage

My Mother’s Husband holds my heritage

By hate from both, my Fortune is opposed.

Last June, before the Summer Term had closed,

A Shipman came here, making up his trade

“Adventure everything,” my instinct said.

But luckless I, with nothing but a Cat

To stake in trade could only venture that:

Now I regret I did not venture this

Body and mind, and that which in them is.

Adventured that and on a reckless die

For Death or Fortune risked this grumbling I.

I would have, too, but for the love I bear

To Mistress Alice, beautiful and fair;

Daughter of Arlingham, King Richard’s Knight.

She only is my pleasure and delight.

Penniless I, unhappy, love her so

That though I hate my life, I cannot go

Away from here, lest I should never see

Her blessed sunlight shining upon me.

She comes here sometimes as a sunbeam falls

Once in a year, perhaps, on prison-walls

Then, passing, leaves the knowledge that light is.

Would I had greatly ventured, ending this,

Staking myself for all that I have dreamt.

Love is not love that risks not in attempt.

I should have ventured seaward and have found

Way to my heart’s desire, or have drowned . . .

Not rotted here . . . The tyrant enters. Peace.

It was my Husband’s being partly mad

And love for Brother made me take the lad.

Here throughout boyhood he has learned the trade.

Now the ungrateful scoundrel would be paid . . .

Paid, after all the charity he has had.

I know he longs to murder me and seize

My Husband’s place and work-rooms: oh, I know

The greed of gold possessing him like lust . . .

Why, when the Captain came, some months ago,

This Richard sent his cat abroad in trade;

Ventured his cat for profit over-seas . . .

O dog, so greedy for the golden dust,

Small profit, God be thanked, your venture made;

Ship, cat and captain must have drowned ere this;

None has had tidings of them since they weighed.

Would that my thought were poison in his cup,

I hate him so; for I am growing old,

My star is sinking, his is rising up

This Richard rises and my heart forebodes,

For I am in a dangerous enterprise:—

My Brother, who usurps this Richard’s lands,

Plots for the post of Warden of the West

Which the King gives to Arlingham the Knight.

My Brother and myself have sworn to lies

Against this Arlingham: and now, to-night,

Our joint denouncing comes to the King’s hands.

God, put belief within the royal breast,

Let him believe our charges and smite down

This Arlingham, and make my Brother warden.

I know it, Richard, thank you: now good-bye.

Good fortune to you in the days to be.

Believe in Life, good Richard: it will mend,

And you will conquer Fortune very soon

And be as glad as April in the moon

And follow Alice on the swallow’s wing.

Why, you bone-idle, gormandizing thing,

Why, you shall have your wouldings to the top:

I here dismiss you, both from works and shop,

Go venture with the sailors like your cat,

Or after Alice as the swallows do.

The world’s your mistress now: I’ve done with you.

Forth with you to the beggary and rope

Henceforth to be your portion as I hope.

Her Father may engage me in his troop

Riding the Marches beyond Severn Loop,

And I will serve him well, serving for her,

And it is good to plunge into the stir

For her who is the banner of my mind.

Therefore I go, to seek what I shall find.

About a central calm the currents turn,

Gently or turbulently, never still;

As round a rock the tidal eddies churn,

So these, as the Mood passes at my will.

And as men lift their eyes towards a hill

For marching-mark when wayless in a plain,

So, in the darkness of the roaring ill,

Men question this, “Does Fortune turn again?”

O shifting winds of passion, changing tides

Of living nations that the women bare,

Seek out the central quiet that abides,

Within yourselves are Peace and Everywhere;

But since the running star with the bright hair

Lures, and men follow, to disaster strange,

Think this, that I am just, and am aware,

And that, however fixed, the wind will change.

I left this city for the West, I passed

Into the springless Cotswolds, scanty-grassed,

And saw the raddled Severn running red,

With Worcester green, and Malvern blue, ahead.

Then learned that on some traitor’s false report

Alice’s Father was disgraced at Court

And had returned to London to await

Sentence (men told me) and a traitor’s fate,

With ruin to himself and to his girl.

Thus, with my wits and passions in a whirl

Helpless in Alice’s need as in my own,

I sat me down upon a boundary stone

Not knowing where to turn, nor what to do.

And as well-water, ever-clean and new,

Comes from the unknown hollow underground

Into the light, and dances, and makes sound,

So, from within me and without me, wells

Of message sounded with the voice of bells,

Saying again and yet again, these words.

    “Turn again, Whittington,

    Lord Mayor of London Town;

    Turn again, Whittington,

    Lord Mayor of London Town;

    Of London Town

    Three times Lord Mayor.”

    The April wind and all the April birds

Repeated this, so that I could not doubt

My Life within was touched by Life without.

Therefore I have returned as the words bade.

I hear sad news of my beloved maid.

Her Father’s goods escheated to the Crown,

Herself in some mean lodging in the town,

Deserted in her need, and helpless I

Her friend forever, sunk in poverty,

But I am in the cockcrow of my day

After the dark, the morning becomes gray.

Beauty will triumph, Love will find a way.

Father, unjustly ’prisoned in the Tower,

Lives with small hope of ever issuing thence

He tells the dreary stones and counts the hour

And prays that God may show his innocence.

I’ve got no work for idlers such as you.

Work is for workers, not a useless crew

Who never did a turn and never can.

You are less use than a blind, crippled man.

You that have had your riches should have kept.

You have lived daintily and ate and slept

And now will taste the difference. And besides

Treason is as the gracious King decides . . .

I’ll have no traitors here, nor traitors’ kin.

Find other means to feed your pretty skin,

You’ll get none here and so I tell you plain.

Courage, sweet lady, for the darkest hour

Prepares the dawn, the darkest bud the flower.

Though all malignance all its malice spend

Spirits that hate malignance come to friend.

And I can friend, for everything I have

Is consecrated yours unto the grave,

Sweet lady, while I live, you shall not starve.

This city’s granite block this soul shall carve

You sent her to more life, for she gave breath

Soon after this to seven little ones.

She kittened, to be plain, between the guns,

And reared her kittens to a stalwart seven

Such as the cats (if there be mice) in Heaven.

The ship went loitering onward, moon by moon,

And reached the capital of Settaroon,

Mapongo City on Mapong’ Lagoon.

But, ah, Mapongo City, once so glad

With roaring life, was desolate and sad

Curse had undone the glory it had had.

Of all the roaring life that used to run

To cheer incoming bark or galleon

With songs and splashing spray, we saw not one.

Voiceless, with empty streets, the city lay,

The palm-thatch blown to tatters, withered gray

Doors blowing to and fro, walls in decay.

And when the sailors landed, they espied

No man at all, but yet on every side

Myriads of Mice, quick-flitting, glitter-eyed.

And in the palace on his throne of state

The King of Settaroon, Mapongo, sate

Gray with his fear, but constant under Fate.

I am Mapongo. Ere my Father died,

Two years ago, he called me to his side.

He said, “I tell you what my Father told

Myself, when I was young and he was old . . .

All Evil that afflicts this land of ours

Comes from a wizard who has Devil’s powers.

He dwells within a man-bone scattered tract

A moon’s march hence, beneath the Cataract.

He who shall kill this Devil will deliver

This Kingdom from all Evil whatsoever.

As Battle, Revolution, Murrain, Blight,

The Pest by day, man-killing Beasts by night.

Therefore I bid you (as my Father me)

Seek out this Devil (as did I and he),

And spear him if you can, ourselves have failed.”

My Father having died, myself was hailed

King, in his place, and therefore took a spear

And sought that Devil in his cave of fear.

He dwells within a gash of mile-high walls

Into which wrench of earth a river falls

So that a smoke of water rises gray

All rainbow-lit and soaking earth with spray

The water-eagles cruise there, seeking prey.

I found a trackway narrow as a girth

Leading below into that gash in earth

Beneath, the water roared in the abyss

I heard the eagles mew, the serpents hiss.

I reached the beach below, the slippery stones

Were heaped with driftwood and with dead men’s bones.

I reached the falls, that ever-dropping cloak

Of water torn as wool and flung as smoke.

I reached the cave, that grimness ever gray

With ever-changing spectres of the spray.

I entered in those galleries of stone:—

I heard no sound, but I was not alone.

The black glass alleys gleamed: I could not see

Aught else, but something else was there with me.

Its breath was just behind me as I crept,

Its footstep was like echo when I stepped.

At every corner, it was there in front,

My spirit was the quarry of its hunt.

And when I reached the central cave I knew

The thing was present, evil as doom due.

And nothing shewed: a small red fire burned:

Yet the whole cavern threatened me and girned.

I cried: “I am Mapongo: meet me here

O Cavern Devil, spear to flying spear.”

No answer came, yet something seemed to mock

With silent laughter in the cavern rock.

Then suddenly I felt the cavern fill

With many unseen shapes of evil will.

And suddenly a myriad little eyes

Peered at me from the cavern’s galleries.

No word was said, but at a secret sign

A myriad teeth went ‘chatter’: so did mine.

Then at a sign that none could hear or see

Those myriad little Devils rushed at me.

And I? I fled, and from that hellish place

I ran to Settaroon, with them in chase . . .

And though we slaughtered myriads, myriads more

Came in upon us all and overbore.

We had to fly for life, and having flown

They picked our city to the inner bone,

Nothing was left that was not shut in stone.

Hiding in forest boughs we saw beneath

The million tails, bead-eyes, and gnawing teeth,

But vengeance followed on those conquering Mice . . .

This Richard’s cat and kittens, brought ashore,

Smote them, as blowing fire shatters ice . . .

And as November beech-leaves fly before

A gale from the Atlantic, so did these

Fly, from the terror talonning them dead,

Some, to swift ending in the breaking seas,

The rest, to darkness in the forest, fled.

To Richard Whittington, to have and hold.

One ton of gold-dust, one ton solid gold.

Ten emeralds of Sarras, each as green

As hawthorn leaves in April, when first seen.

Ten rubies of Ratanga, each as red

As dog-rose berries when the rose is dead.

Ten sapphires of Solyma, each as blue

As heaven is to girls when love is new.

Ten alabaster caskets of cut stones

Amethysts, beryls, jacynths, chalcedones.

Ten sherris sapphires coloured like cut corn;

Ten moon spikes of the icy unicorn;

Ten pearls like moonlight on a quiet pond;

Ten black pearls, and a frosty diamond.

Eleven hundred ostrich plumes which foam

Over at edge in flounce as billows comb.

Eleven hundred tusks, some white and some

Yellow, some scarlet from blood-coloured gum

Eleven hundred baskets of a bark

So sweet men cannot handle it till dark.

Eleven hundred boxes of such balm

As mollifies all anger into calm.

Eleven hundred buckets of such spice

As burns the Phœnix in her sacrifice.

But topping all together comes beside

The Crimson Settaroon, Mapongo’s Pride,

The jewel that gives light from inner fire,

Round as the orb, outflowing as desire,

Out of the passion of whose globe there burns

Ray after ray that lightens and returns.

Itself alone such wealth as never yet

Came Europe-wards for crown or coronet.

Here is the deed of gift, the treasure waits

At Tower Wharf beside the Tower gates.

For Richard Whittington, Mapongo’s Friend.

May your delight in living never end.

The King will greet you here when we are gone.

Long life and luck to Richard Whittington.

May Earth be so happy with Heaven that all souls shall sing

            As the stars and the planets above

            The Order, the Beauty, the Love

      Of the Might that directs them as King.

Yet I have climbed the hill in hope to see,

Before the mist is white with the moon’s power,

Those workers of our country’s destiny,

And hear them talk for their allotted hour:—

And lo, great figures sitting with a Queen,

Spirits of that which will be or has been:—

                Nay, ask themselves to speak,

They were once strengths for sifting out the weak,

And resolute for ends, as you are now.

To Life’s uncoultered pasture they were plough;

To Life’s unscattered fallow they were seed.

They lived and suffered torture and had need.

I am that Katharine brought out of Spain to be wed

To Arthur, the Prince; I was wedded, then widowed, then wooed

By Henry the brother of Arthur, my prince who was dead:

I came to be Queen beside Henry, and sorrows ensued

    Not singly but brood upon brood,

    Till my heart was made sick, and my faith

    Like a rag under feet of the rude,

    And I died of the shame and the scathe.

It is scant happiness, sisters, to be as a pawn

In the chess of the Kings of the nations, a pawn to be played,

Exchanged for advantage, or lost, or advanced or withdrawn,

But the game is the game of God’s will, and His will be obeyed.

    Like Him are the Kings He has made

    To rule as He rules, and to bring

    Into Earth the Idea of the King:

    Knowing this I endured unafraid.

I was a child when I was wedded to Arthur,

A child when Arthur died: yet, being a child

I saw the old King plotting to save my dowry

By marrying me to his surviving son,

Henry the Prince: he had his will and the dowry,

And I was married to that most hopeful prince.

The old King died, my Henry was crowned as the King.

I was the Queen of England, with bright hopes shining.

No prince in Europe had royaller hopes than mine.

How shall I speak of him that was

Of all Kings’ sons the chrysopras?

He was built stalwart as the bull,

His countenance was beautiful,

His body perfect, his feet swift,

His mind filled full with every gift,

With every talent, for he knew

The things that men of genius do

And did them as a master might.

Music was ever his delight,

He sang, he played, he wrote sweet airs

Which the Court minstrels wished were theirs:

He was an architect whose schemes

Surpassed the living master’s dreams:

He knew the known tongues and could speak

Latin, French, German, Spanish, Greek;

And in his speech such sweetness hung

He witched all comers with his tongue:

He knew all law, he could debate

All questions touching his estate:

In all disputes he could take part

With the best doctors in each art:

And in himself he had such force,

Such mastery and grace of horse,

Such swiftness and such skill in play,

Wrestling or tennis, that men say

None ever equalled him, or near.

In courtesy, none was his peer.

In gifts, none matched him, nor in grace

Of body, spirit, parts or face.

None was more loved, none was more served

With constancy that never swerved;

And none began a reign so stored

With things that men and angels hoard.

His treasuries were filled; his land

Was well content beneath his hand;

His counsellors were good; his friends

Secure; he sought no wicked ends.

The sun seemed rising in his might

To fill the English realm with light;

And hourly the thinkers wrought

More beauty out of subtle thought.

And life, to all alive, was even

With the bright boundaries of Heaven,

And angels walked the earth with men.

England was surely Heaven then.

And had my sons survived, my Fate

Would have been ever fortunate . . .

My sons all died, I brought no heir

For all the little babes I bare.

And other bitternesses grew,

France and her influences drew

The English out of touch with Spain;

And Wolsey smarting with the pain

Of being thwarted in his hope,

Of coming to be made the Pope,

Was hostile both to Spain and me.

And Henry glowered lustfully

On courtesans: and everywhere

Spoke of his longing for an heir

Who should ensure the Kingdom’s peace.

And trouble-makers did not cease

To tell him that my barrenness

Came from his godless wickedness

In marrying his brother’s wife.

To have his link with me dissolved,

By Papal means, if that might be.

Long, long he wrought for that decree

By threat and bribe and argument . . .

All pretexts cloaking his intent

To leave me and to live with Anne.

I pleaded when the suit began,

Not afterward, I stood aside.

I pitied those who in their pride

Helped Henry, then, for I had learned

What devil in his spirit burned,

What worship of himself, what will

In all things to be master still;

To be the axle or the pin

On which another world might spin.

I knew how deadly he would be

To all who helped in ousting me;

And as I knew it would, it fell:

Their moment’s glory led to hell.

I was what I had ever been,

A queen, the daughter of a queen,

Anointed and appointed great;

Death only could annul my state;

But Death came slowly: I could see

My ousters ruined before me.

That was no joy; I also saw

My Henry falling from all law

Into all headlong lust of will.

I saw him lie and rob and kill,

Smite at the holy, wreck the brave,

Do all things as his devil drave,

With no good counsellor or friend.

It made my very heart-strings rend

To see his soul in devil’s hands.

God, who allowed it, understands.

And, for myself, I took the bad

That followed on the good I had had.

I learned how pitifully kind

Friends may be to a tortured mind.

I learned that peace may be attained

By sinners racked and many-pained;

Peace that is south wind after east,

Quiet to greatest and to least,

Quiet in which Earth’s feverish things,

The wills and fiercenesses of Kings,

Sink to proportion, and the soul

Perceives the universe unroll

Star beyond singing star, immense

Beyond all dream, beyond all sense,

All order, all magnificence.

God in His Mercy let me see

Through darknesses that covered me

Bright planets that his angels be.

I am that Wolsey the Cardinal, prelate and proud,

I who was King of my King, who was sceptre and sway.

To me, not to Henry, the princes and potentates bowed.

I strode like the sun in his glory on Midsummer Day.

    My splendour all crashed in decay,

    The web that my spirit had spun

    Was swept into dust and undone;

    I died as the gambler who fails.

I was a butcher’s son, but royally dowered

With wit and Fortune, which dower smoothed my pathway.

Men gave me place: men made me a priest: and helped me.

One man there was who checked me, I then being priest,

One Paulet, a country gentle, set me in stocks.

It is dangerous to check beginning Fortune:—

Lads grow; priests become bishops, princes take Kingdoms;

And I, that priest in the stocks, was soon most trusted,

Chaplain to Calais’ treasurer, employed, besought,

My advice asked and taken, and my young wisdom

Praised to the King himself, who took me to service.

I think that Paulet repented before he died.

Henry the Seventh gave me my chance, as follows:

He sent me upon a mission to Maximilian,

The Emperor, then in Flanders: I staked my all

On doing that mission like an angel of God.

Therefore, on leaving the King, I sped down river,

Helped by the wind and the ebbing tide to Gravesend,

Where taking horse I galloped: and all night galloped

From post to post across Kent, rousing the ostlers,

Flinging myself from reeking horse to the fresh one

And galloping through the night with owls and foxes,

Till lo, cocks crowed and Heaven grew gray at Dover . . .

There, tottering down the beach, I found fair fortune,

A ship with her sails cast loose at point of sailing

For Calais. I climbed aboard her; in three hours more

I was in France upon horseback galloping on.

That night I was with the Emperor, in treaty.

None ever beat or out-braved me in any treaty

When I was facing my man, nor did the Emperor.

Next day my treaties were settled: all that next night

I galloped for Calais, got there at morning gun

Again, found ship; and, getting aboard, wind favoured,

In three hours more I was galloping from Dover,

And late that night I came to the Court at Richmond.

King Henry being abed, I too could take rest

After eighty hours spurring from post to post,

But I was afoot ere dawn, awaiting Henry

As he passed from bed to chapel to early Mass.

As I returned I met him and learned his errand.

But as for the needful point, may it please Your Grace,

I thought of it myself on my journey Eastwards,

How vital it was; and greatly presuming dared

(Though without warrant from you) to urge the matter.

The Emperor’s self was pleased to agree and seal.

Pardon your servant’s assumption in so doing.”

Then the King said “I not only pardon, but thank

A servant so thoughtful, eager and fortunate.”

Friends, from that mission’s happy speed

Came Fortune glorious indeed.

The old King honoured me: his son

Heaped honours on my head: I won

Glory and gratitude from men:

I was made thrice a Bishop, then

Lord Chancellor, Archbishop . . . more,

Legate and Cardinal; priests bore

Great silver crosses as a show

Before me: riches fell like snow

About me: and the gay young King

Left me to govern everything.

My will was Law in Church and State,

Through Christendom my will was great.

I said and Europe did: one hope,

One only, failed me, to be Pope.

The Emperor Charles betrayed me there.

I was like sunlight making fair

All that I shone upon: my house

Was beyond telling glorious

With quaintly twisted chimneys red

Above the dormers and the lead,

And halls and galleries made good

With joinery in precious wood

And flutings running down the grain.

I had stories leaded pane by pane

Into the windows, that they shewed

Shagged Centaurs in the mountain-road

Coming towards the haunts of men

To ravish women: and agen

The Rapes and Loves that Ovid told.

And hanging upon rods of gold

I had tapestries of silk whereon

The Loves of Mars and Venus shone.

I had golden cups and plates enough

To fit the King with household stuff;

Of silver plate I took no heed.

My gardens sprang from foreign seed.

All that is excellent in fruit,

Or beautiful in flower, took root

There, with such fragrance, and so bright,

Spirits were trancéd with delight . . .

And I had many a joy beside:

Green woodlands for my stags of pride;

Cock-shutes and coney-warrens, stews

For many a swift pike and slow luce . . .

Half a shire grew meat and bread

That my great household might be fed.

They who beheld my state, I wis,

They only, know what glory is.

My state was greater than the King’s.

My Herald went with trumpettings

Before, with the two crosses, then

My mace-man and my pillar-men,

Then ushers crying “Way, make way!”

Then three and three my picked array

In velvet, bearing golden chains.

Then sumpter mules and baggage trains.

Then spearmen in a bodyguard

In scarlet tunics golden starred,

And bowmen wearing tawny coats.

Then to the cheering of all throats

Came the Great Seal majestical,

And the Red Hat of the Cardinal,

Both borne by noblemen; and then

I, the great crimson King of men,

Rode stately on a mule of state;

Four men with pollaxes of plate

Were at my sides, and after me

Were seventy horsemen, three and three,

Riding great horses, scarlet hung.

And men and children sweet of tongue

Sang to me as I rode or stayed.

I was a god to whom men prayed,

A wise god, taking thought for all.

In scarlet, under golden pall,

I sat like godhead and gave doom.

There were five hundred men to whom

My daily state gave daily bread.

But Henry’s lust to be unwed

From Katharine and wed to Anne

Was ruin to me: there began

Problems I could not shelve nor solve.

I strove to change the King’s resolve . . .

That failed . . . then I was forced to strive

To win him licence to re-wive . . .

Yet the Pope saw what wars would be

If he should grant the King’s decree.

Straight Katharine’s nephew would invade

Rome, to avenge her: so he stayed.

I saw that if the Pope refused

The King’s divorce, there would be loosed

On Rome in England, on the Church,

Utter destruction that would search

Rome’s hold on England and outroot.

Such was the seed, such was the fruit.

Even as I saw it came to pass . . .

That heart of flint and brow of brass

Broke Rome in England for his lust.

Myself was stricken to the dust;

That black-eyed mistress and her lord

Put some few martyrs to the sword,

And smote me to the broken form

Wrapped up in linen for the worm,

A dead man without power to stir.

I, Cardinal and Minister,

I, Chancellor and Legate, lay

Under the quire in the clay,

Dropping to dust, and all my schemes

Dust too, forgotten as men’s dreams.

Forgotten as the star that lights

A trail thro’ Heaven on winter-nights

And falling fades and leaves no trace.

I, the Pope’s Legate, the King’s Grace,

Am vanished: there remain behind

Some gleams, however, from my mind

From which men know that there was one

Once, who was splendid as the sun;

Who bent great brows upon affairs

And made Kings’ wills his ploughing-shares,

And was the central pin whereon

Revolved that Europe that is gone.

While I was Sun, the planets shone.

I am the beautiful Queen who was ruined and lost.

I am Anne Bullen, whom men still remember with pity.

Few have bought terrible days at more pitiful cost.

Falling from Queen to the hatred of country and city,

Like a rudderless ship I was tossed.

Powers made use of my being,

Changes too vast for man’s seeing,

The Will of the Time passing by.

I was a black-eyed witty girl of old

When, with my sixteen summers hardly told,

I came from France into the English Court.

Promptly King Henry wooed me for his sport,

As he had wooed my sister (so men said);

But I escaped the amorous traps he laid.

I was the Queen’s maid, dedicate and vowed

To the Queen’s service, and besides was proud.

And yet it thrilled me, knowing that the King

Loved me past doubt, beyond imagining . . .

That that grim palace-bull with bloody horn

Came like a ring-dove to my hand for corn.

Then, for the Queen, men muttered everywhere:

“A barren Queen, and England needs an heir . . .

God has pronounced against her: it is plain.

Henry should be divorced and wed again,

The State demands it . . . If his second choice

Were English, surely England would rejoice.”

Dignities fell into my father’s hand,

Jewels and moneys, titles, manor-land . . .

And people whispered: “Lady, if you choose,

You can be Queen of England: why refuse?”

And others said: “If you were England’s Queen

The Reformed Faith would prosper and be green

Where now its martyrs perish at the stake.

Anne, become Queen for sweet religion’s sake.”

Others (and my ambitions) said their say:

“How grand to hear the heralds clear the way . . .

‘Way for Queen Anne!’; how exquisite to lead

All England’s peeresses as Queen indeed;

When Henry sought divorce and Rome refused,

Bitterer tongues spoke, angrier pleas were used:—

“Make the King paramount within his realm,

Strike off this Roman guidance from the helm,

Abase this Spanish Queen who uses Rome.

The English King must be supreme at home.”

My spirit saw the images of power,

The crown, the scarlet and the pride of place,

The thousand eyes on one unseeing face,

My Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, all

Splendid with gold-work, bearing up my pall.

King Henry’s hand on mine, King Henry’s son

Mine, to be King when Henry’s reign was done,

’Tis but a step to Hell; but getting back

Takes many a march up jagged rocks, alack!

I, who had only youth and Henry’s greed,

Staked those for Henry and was queen indeed.

Rome was defied, dishonoured, dispossessed,

A flooding spring, with me upon its crest,

Swept over England, bearing me to power;

Men rang the bells for me in that my hour . . .

All England’s bells . . . and London’s thousands massed,

Scattering roses on me as I passed

To have the crown upon my brows at last.

Then great guns thundered, trumpets silver-keen

Shrilled, and the Prelate cried “God save the Queen!”

My child was a Princess, thereafter came

Griefs and disasters putting me to shame . . .

Daily the foothold underneath me failed,

King Henry wearied of me; foes assailed.

Men shouted insults at me in the street,

The Court spies sought my blood on catlike feet.

When foreign Kings’ ambassadors appeared

They did not hail me Queen, they smiled and sneered

And called me the King’s woman: but, alas,

I was not that . . . another woman was.

Jane Seymour, once my waiting-woman, stepped

Into the heart that I no longer kept.

Henry and she were lovers to the full;

I was not merciful nor dutiful;

The broken heart is often mad in head.

Then was my princely little son born dead,

Round me were enemy on enemy;

Some I had humbled or had thwarted, some

The friends and followers of the Queen to come.

Then I was paid that I had once reviled

And used with spite my predecessor’s child;

Then I was paid that once I moved the King

In wanton hatred to a darker thing.

I was well paid in those few weeks of hate,

Lost beyond hope, but having still to wait.

None but the lovely stand by misery.

My brother and some others stood by me.

One loyal and a lover to one lost,

Such surely is the soul God treasures most.

Bitter and utter was the death that fell

On those who comforted my weeks of hell.

In those few weeks, though nothing outward changed,

My death and Henry’s wedding were arranged,

My headsman ordered, and most savage ends

Prepared by all my foes for all my friends.

Then at the tourney as the trumpets blew,

Henry arose like one with death to do.

One merciless fat sidelong look he gave,

From which I knew that he had dug my grave;

Then he was gone at gallop, and the fawn

Myself, was netted and the toils were drawn.

I who was England’s Queen, had now to die.

That is forgotten where my ashes lie,

And where my spirit is, it is forgiven.

O living men, for pity and sweet Heaven,

Forgive what misery my thoughtlessness

Wrought ere my life was smitten with distress.

I, the White Falcon with the starry rod

Of roses, am a lesser bird with God.

I am in peace where flowers shine like stars.

The hates and angers beat against the bars

Of Love, that shuts this sunny garden close.

When the bells chime the loving overflows

Out of the garden and the angers cease;

Men’s souls behold a morning star of peace

    And cry: “O silvery one,

    Companion of the Sun,

    Mark not the thing ill-done

    In the blind Night,

    But mark the Life begun,

    The Race still to be run,

    The Hope that may be won,

    Now we have light.”

I might have been priest, but my brother’s death made me a King;

I planned to be worthy the office, a master indeed;

I fashioned myself as a goldsmith who fashions a ring,

That none in the Kingdom but I should have power to lead.

    I was not a puppet nor reed,

    But a master in body and soul,

    And the weeds that I could not control

    I cut, as is best for a weed.

                            And you, sweet minion,

You charmed me many hours, but did not bring

The heir the Kingdom wanted:—tales were told

Of plottings that should bring the wanted heir:

You say, false tales.

Perhaps, but they seemed likely to be true

To one who knew your nature: you were cast out

And with you all your fellows, utterly.

I found this Kingdom swayed by foreign powers

And left her free of them: I builded up

A fleet to keep her: I uprooted all

Those states within a state which ruin states;

I made myself the head: and any head

Which had not wit to bow, I lopped away . . .

Good heads among them, too; better than yours.

Would I had had a stalwart son or two

From those six flimsy women whom I tried.

The hour passes, the tale is told.

O honoured wife of Odysseus, son of Laertes,

Destroy not your beautiful body nor perish your heart

With mourning your husband. I will not in any way blame it

For indeed any woman would mourn for a husband destroyed

For the man unto whom, in her love, she bare children, although

He were worse than Odysseus, who (men say) is peer to the gods

But cease now from mourning and lay me up this in your heart.

I will tell you the utterest truth, nor deceive you at all.

I have heard of Odysseus returning to home; he is near.

Alive, in the fertile land of the men of Thesprotia.

And brings many treasures and rich as he strays thro’ the land.

But his hollow ship and his trusty companions are lost

In the wine-bright sea.

Not long will the King be far from his friends and country:—

Nevertheless I will give you now my oath . . .

Now first may Zeus, the highest and best of gods

Bear witness here and the hearth of noble Odysseus

To which I have come, that this shall be all fulfilled.

                                    Alas!

Woe’s me, child, unable to help you, surely our God

Loathed you above all mortals although you were righteous

For never has mortal yet burned so many thighs

Or offerings picked, to God Delighting in Thunder,

As you once gave with prayer that yourself might come

To a smooth old age and rear your glorious son.

Now God has taken from you all day of returning.

So all men say, who have seen us both with eyes,

That we’re very much like each other, as now you notice.

Now Eurycleia, seeing the scar, at once

Knew that she touched Odysseus’ self and straight

Her joy and grief took hold of her wits, her eyes

Filled with tears, and her clear voice checked, as she said:

Nurse, why do you speak of these, when there is not need?

I’ll notice them well myself and mark each one.

You hold to a silent mind and trust to the gods.

I keep twenty geese at the farm, eating grain from the pool,

I am happy to see them. Now out of the mountain there came

A great crook-beaked eagle that struck on their necks and killed all.

They lay heaped in hall while he lifted aloft through bright air.

And I cried and made clamour although it was only a dream.

And the women of Greece with the beautiful hair gathered round me

To my pitiful cry that the eagle had slaughtered my geese.

But the eagle came back and was perched on an outjutting cornice.

And ending my weeping he spoke with the voice of a man.

O guest, if you would but sit thus in my halls giving comfort

Beside me, sleep would not be laid on my eyelids at all.

But men may not always be sleepless; the Deathless have made

A Fate for each thing among men on the corn-giving world

I shall go to my high upper room and there lay me to bed

All made with my sorrows and soiled with my weeping since he,

Odysseus went forth to see Evil Troy not to be named.

There I shall rest; but yourself will lie here in the house,

Either stretched on the ground, or let some set a bed for you here.