SCENE IV.
The Banks of a River.—Walter and the Lady.
LADY.
The stream of sunsets?
WALTER.
'Tis that loveliest stream.
I've learned by heart its sweet and devious course
By frequent tracing, as a lover learns
The features of his best-beloved's face.
In memory it runs, a shining thread,
With sunsets strung upon it thick, like pearls.
From yonder trees I've seen the western sky
All washed with fire, while, in the midst, the sun
Beat like a pulse, welling at ev'ry beat
A spreading wave of light. Where yonder church
Stands up to heaven, as if to intercede
For sinful hamlets scattered at its feet,
I saw the dreariest sight. The sun was down,
And all the west was paved with sullen fire.
I cried, "Behold! the barren beach of hell
At ebb of tide." The ghost of one bright hour
Comes from its grave and stands before me now.
'Twas at the close of a long summer day,
As we were sitting on yon grassy slope,
The sunset hung before us like a dream
That shakes a demon in his fiery lair;
The clouds were standing round the setting sun
Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles,
Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light,
Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame,
Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks
Of pilèd gorgeousness, and rocks of fire
A-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas,
All these were huddled in that dreadful west,
All shook and trembled in unsteadfast light,
And from the centre blazed the angry sun,
Stern as the unlashed eye of God a-glare
O'er evening city with its boom of sin.
I do remember, as we journeyed home,
(That dreadful sunset burnt into our brains),
With what a soothing came the naked moon.
She, like a swimmer who has found his ground,
Came rippling up a silver strand of cloud,
And plunged from the other side into the night.
I and that friend, the feeder of my soul,
Did wander up and down these banks for years,
Talking of blessed hopes and holy faiths,
How sin and weeping all should pass away
In the calm sunshine of the earth's old age.
Breezes are blowing in old Chaucer's verse,
'Twas here we drank them. Here for hours we hung
O'er the fine pants and trembles of a line.
Oft, standing on a hill's green head, we felt
Breezes of love, and joy, and melody,
Blow through us, as the winds blow through the sky.
Oft with our souls in our eyes all day we fed
On summer landscapes, silver-veined with streams,
O'er which the air hung silent in its joy—
With a great city lying in its smoke,
A monster sleeping in its own thick breath;
And surgy plains of wheat, and ancient woods,
In the calm evenings cawed by clouds of rooks,
Acres of moss, and long black strips of firs,
And sweet cots dropt in green, where children played
To us unheard, till, gradual, all was lost
In distance-haze to a blue rim of hills,
Upon whose heads came down the closing sky.
Beneath the crescent moon on autumn nights
We paced its banks with overflowing hearts,
Discoursing long of great thought-wealthy souls,
And with what spendthrift hands they scatter wide
Their spirit-wealth, making mankind their debtors:
Affluent spirits, dropt from the teeming stars,
Who come before their time, are starved, and die,
Like swallows that arrive before the summer.
Or haply talked of dearer personal themes,
Blind guesses at each other's after fate;
Feeling our leaping hearts, we marvelled oft
How they should be unleashed, and have free course
To stretch and strain far down the coming time—
But in our guesses never was the grave.
LADY.
The tale! the tale! the tale! As empty halls
Gape for a coming pageant, my fond ears
To take its music are all eager-wide.
WALTER.
Within yon grove of beeches is a well,
I've made a vow to read it only there.
LADY.
As I suppose, by way of recompense,
For quenching thirst on some hot summer day.
WALTER.
Memories grow around it thick as flow
That well is loved and haunted by a star.
The live-long day her clear and patient eye
Is open on the soft and bending blue,
Just where she lost her lover in the morn.
But with the night the star creeps o'er the trees
And smiles upon her, and some happy hours
She holds his image in her crystal heart.
Beside that well I read the mighty Bard
Who clad himself with beauty, genius, wealth,
Then flung himself on his own passion-pyre
And was consumed. Beside that lucid well
The whitest lilies grow for many miles.
'Tis said that, 'mong the flowers of perished years,
A prince woo'd here a lady of the land,
And when with faltering lips he told his love,
Into her proud face leapt her prouder blood;
She struck him blind with scorn, then with an air
As if she wore the crowns of all the world,
She swept right on and left him in the dew.
Again he sat at even with his love,
He sent a song into her haughty ears
To plead for him;—she listened, still he sang.
Tears, drawn by music, were upon her face,
Till on its trembling close, to which she clung
Like dying wretch to life, with a low cry
She flung her arms around him, told her love,
And how she long had loved him, but had kept
It in her heart, like one who has a gem
And hoards it up in some most secret place,
While he who owns it seeks it and with tears.
Won by the sweet omnipotence of song!
He gave her lands! she paid him with herself.
Brow-bound with gold she sat, the fairest thing
Within his sea-washed shores.
LADY.
Most fit reward!
A poet's love should ever thus be paid.
WALTER.
Ha! Dost thou think so?
LADY.
Yes. The tale! the tale!
WALTER.
On balcony, all summer roofed with vines,
A lady half-reclined amid the light,
Golden and green, soft-showering through the leaves,
Silent she sat one-half the silent noon;
At last she sank luxurious in her couch,
Purple and golden-fringèd, like the sun's,
And stretched her white arms on the warmèd air,
As if to take some object wherewithal
To ease the empty aching of her heart.
"Oh, what a weariness of life is mine!"
The lady said, "soothing myself to sleep
With my own lute, floating about the lake
To feed my swans; with nought to stir my blood,
Unless I scold my women thrice a-day.
Unwrought yet in the tapestry of my life
Are princely suitors kneeling evermore.
I, in my beauty, standing in the midst,
Touching them, careless, with most stately eyes.
Oh, I could love, methinks, with all my soul!
But I see nought to love; nought save some score
Of lisping, curl'd gallants, with words i' their mouths
Soft as their mothers' milk. Oh, empty heart!
Oh, palace, rich and purple-chambered!
When will thy lord come home?
"When the grey morn was groping 'bout the east
The Earl went trooping forth to chase the stag;
I trust he hath not, to the sport he loves
Better than ale-bouts, ta'en my cub of Ind.
My sweetest plaything. He is bright and wild
As is a gleaming panther of the hills,—
Lovely as lightning, beautiful as wild!
His sports and laughters are with fierceness edged;
There's something in his beauty all untamed,
As I were toying with a naked sword,
Which starts within my veins the blood of earls.
I fain would have the service of his voice
To kill with music this most languid noon."
She rang a silver bell: with downcast eyes
The tawny nursling of the Indian sun
Stood at her feet. "I pr'ythee, Leopard, sing;
Give me some stormy song of sword and lance,
Which, rushing upward from a hero's heart,
Straight rose upon a hundred leaguered hills,
Ragged and wild as pyramid of flame.
Or, better, sing some hungry lay of love
Like that you sang me on the eve you told
How poor our English to your Indian darks;
Shaken from od'rous hills, what tender smells
Pass like fine pulses through the mellow nights;
The purple ether that embathes the moon,—
Your large round moon, more beautiful than ours;
Your showers of stars, each hanging luminous,
Like golden dewdrops in the Indian air."
"I know a song, born in the heart of love,
Its sweetest sweet, steeped ere the close in tears.
'Twas sung into the cold ears of the stars
Beside the murmured margent of the sea.
'Tis of two lovers, matched like cymbals fine,
Who, in a moment of luxurious blood,
Their pale lips trembling in the kiss of gods,
Made their lives wine-cups, and then drank them off,
And died with beings full-blown like a rose;
A mighty heart-pant bore them like a wave,
And flung them, flowers, upon the next world's strand.
Night the solemn, night the starry,
'Mong the oak-trees old and gnarry;
By the sea-shore and the ships,
'Neath the stars I sat with Clari;
Her silken bodice was unlaced,
My arm was trembling round her waist,
I plucked the joys upon her lips;
Joys that plucked still grow again!
Canst thou say the same, old Night?
Ha! thy life is vain.
Oh, that death would let me tarry
Like a dewdrop on a flower,
Ever on those lips of Clari!
Our beings mellow, then they fall,
Like o'er-ripe peaches from the wall;
We ripen, drop, and all is o'er;
On the cold grave weeps the rain;
I weep it should be so, old Night.
Ah! my tears are vain.
Night the solemn, night the starry,
Say, alas! that years should harry
Gloss from life and joy from lips,
Love-lustre from the eyes of Clari!
Moon! that walkest the blue deep,
Like naked maiden in her sleep;
Star! whose pallid splendour dips
In the ghost-waves of the main.
Oh, ye hear me not! old Night,
My tears and cries are vain."
He ceased to sing; queenly the lady lay,
One white hand hidden in a golden shoal
Of ringlets, reeling down upon her couch,
And heaving on the heavings of her breast,
The while the thoughts rose in her eyes like stars,
Rising and setting in the blue of night.
"I had a cousin once," the lady said,
"Who brooding sat, a melancholy owl,
Among the twilight-branches of his thoughts.
He was a rhymer, and great knights he spoiled,
And damsels saved, and giants slew—in verse.
He died in youth; his heart held a dead hope,
As holds the wretched west the sunset's corpse:
He went to his grave, nor told what man he was.
He was unlanguaged, like the earnest sea,
Which strives to gain an utterance on the shore,
But ne'er can shape unto the listening hills
The lore it gathered in its awful age;
The crime for which 'tis lashed by cruel winds;
The thought, pain, grief, within its labouring breast.
To fledge with music, wings of heavy noon,
I'll sing some verses that he sent to me:—
Where the west has sunset-bloomed,
Where a hero's heart is tombed,
Where a thunder-cloud has gloomed,
Seen, becomes a part of me.
Flowers and rills live sunnily
In gardens of my memory.
Through its walks and leafy lanes,
Float fair shapes 'mong sunlight rains;
Blood is running in their veins.
One, a queenly maiden fair,
Sweepeth past me with an air,
Kings might kneel beneath her stare.
Round her heart, a rosebud free,
Reeled I, like a drunken bee;
Alas! it would not ope to me.
One comes shining like a saint,
But her face I cannot paint,
For mine eyes and blood grow faint.
Eyes are dimmed as by a tear,
Sounds are ringing in mine ear,
I feel only, she is here,
That she laugheth where she stands,
That she mocketh with her hands;
I am bound in tighter bands.
Laid 'mong faintest blooms is one,
Singing in the setting sun,
And her song is never done.
She was born 'mong water-mills;
She grew up 'mong flowers and rills,
In the hearts of distant hills.
There, into her being stole
Nature, and embued the whole,
And illumed her face and soul.
She grew fairer than her peers;
Still her gentle forehead wears
Holy lights of infant years.
Her blue eyes, so mild and meek,
She uplifteth, when I speak,
Lo! the blushes mount her cheek.
Weary I of pride and jest,
In this rich heart I would rest,
Purple and love-linèd nest.
"My dazzling panther of the smoking hills,
When the hot sun hath touched their loads of dew,
What strange eyes had my cousin, who could thus
(For you must know I am the first o' the three
That pace the gardens of his memory)
Prefer before the daughter of great earls,
This giglot, shining in her golden hair,
Haunting him like a gleam or happy thought;
Or her, the last, up whose cheeks blushes went
As thick and frequent as the streamers pass
Up cold December nights. True, she might be
A dainty partner in the game of lips,
Sweet'ning the honeymoon; but what, alas!
When redhot youth cools down to iron man?
Could her white fingers close a helmet up,
And send her lord unkissed away to field,
Her heart striking with his arm in every blow?
Would joy rush through her spirit like a stream,
When to her lips he came with victory back:
Acclaims and blessings on his head like crowns,
His mouthèd wounds brave trumpets in his praise,
Drawing huge shoals of people, like the moon,
Whose beauty draws the solemn-noisèd seas?
Or would his bright and lovely sanguine-stains
Scare all the coward blood into her heart,
Leaving her cheeks as pale as lily leaves?
And at his great step would she quail and faint,
And pay his seeking arms with bloodless swoon?
My heart would leap to greet such coming lord,
Eager to meet him, tiptoe on my lips."
"This cousin loved the Lady Constance; did
The Lady Constance love her cousin, too?"
"Ay, as a cousin. He woo'd me, Leopard mine,
I speared him with a jest; for there are men
Whose sinews stiffen 'gainst a knitted brow,
Yet are unthreaded, loosened by a sneer,
And their resolve doth pass as doth a wave:
Of this sort was my cousin. I saw him once,
Adown a pleachèd alley, in the sun,
Two gorgeous peacocks pecking from his hand;
At sight of me he first turned red, then pale.
I laughed and said, 'I saw a misery perched
I' the melancholy corners of his mouth,
Like griffins on each side my father's gates.'
And, 'That by sighing he would win my heart,
Somewhere as soon as he could hug the earth,
And crack its golden ribs.' A week the boy
Dwelt in his sorrow, like a cataract
Unseen, yet sounding through its shrouding mists.
Strange likings, too, this cousin had of mine.
A frail cloud trailing o'er the midnight moon,
Was lovelier sight than wounded boar a-foam
Among the yelping dogs. He'd lie in fields,
And through his fingers watch the changing clouds,
Those playful fancies of the mighty sky,
With deeper interest than a lady's face.
He had no heart to grasp the fleeting hour,
Which, like a thief, steals by with silent foot,
In his closed hand the jewel of a life.
He scarce would match this throned and kingdom'd earth
Against a dew drop.
"Who'd leap into the chariot of my heart,
And seize the reins, and wind it to his will,
Must be of other stuff, my cub of Ind;
White honour shall be like a plaything to him,
Borne lightly, a pet falcon on his wrist;
One who can feel the very pulse o' the time,
Instant to act, to plunge into the strife,
And with a strong arm hold the rearing world.
In costly chambers hushed with carpets rich,
Swept by proud beauties in their whistling silks,
Mars' plait shall smooth to sweetness on his brow;
His mighty front whose steel flung back the sun,
When horsed for battle, shall bend above a hand
Laid like a lily in his tawny palm,
With such a grace as takes the gazer's eye.
His voice that shivered the mad trumpet's blare,—
A new-raised standard to the reeling field,—
Shall know to tremble at a lady's ear,
To charm her blood with the fine touch of praise,
And as she listens—steal away the heart.
If the good gods do grant me such a man,
More would I dote upon his trenchèd brows,
His coal-black hair, proud eyes, and scornful lips,
Than on a gallant, curled like Absalom,
Cheek'd like Apollo, with his luted voice.
"Canst tell me, Sir Dark-eyes,
Is 't true what these strange-thoughted poets say,
That hearts are tangled in a golden smile?
That brave cheeks pale before a queenly brow?
That mail'd knees bend beneath a lighted eye?
That trickling tears are deadlier than swords?
That with our full-mooned beauty we can slave
Spirits that walk time, like the travelling sun,
With sunset glories girt around his loins?
That love can thrive upon such dainty food
As sweet words, showering from a rosy lip,
As sighs, and smiles, and tears, and kisses warm?"
The dark Page lifted up his Indian eyes
To that bright face, and saw it all a-smile;
And then half grave, half jestingly, he said,—
"The devil fisheth best for souls of men
When his hook is baited with a lovely limb;
Love lights upon the heart, and straight we feel
More worlds of wealth gleam in an upturned eye,
Than in the rich heart of the miser sea.
Beauty hath made our greatest manhoods weak.
There have been men who chafed, leapt on their times,
And reined them in as gallants rein their steeds
To curvetings, to show their sweep of limb;
Yet love hath on their broad brows written 'fool.'
Sages, with passions held in leash like hounds;
Grave Doctors, tilting with a lance of light
In lists of argument, have knelt and sighed
Most plethoric sighs, and been but very men;
Stern hearts, close barred against a wanton world,
Have had their gates burst open by a kiss.
Why, there was one who might have topped all men,
Who bartered joyously for a single smile
This empired planet with its load of crowns,
And thought himself enriched. If ye are fair,
Mankind will crowd around you thick as when
The full-faced moon sits silver on the sea,
The eager waves lift up their gleaming heads,
Each shouldering for her smile."
The lady dowered him with her richest look,
Her arch head half aside, her liquid eyes,
From 'neath their dim lids drooping slumberous,
Stood full on his, and called the wild blood up
All in a tumult to his sun-kissed cheek,
As if it wished to see her beauty too—
Then asked in dulcet tones, "Dost think me fair?"
"Oh, thou art fairer than an Indian morn,
Seated in her sheen palace of the east.
Thy faintest smile out-prices the swelled wombs
Of fleets, rich-glutted, toiling wearily
To vomit all their wealth on English strands.
The whiteness of this hand should ne'er receive
A poorer greeting than the kiss of kings;
And on thy happy lips doth sit a joy,
Fuller than any gathered by the gods,
In all the rich range of their golden heaven."
"Now, by my mother's white enskied soul!"
The lady cried, 'twixt laugh and blush the while,
"I'll swear thou'st been in love, my Indian sweet.
Thy spirit on another breaks in joy,
Like the pleased sea on a white-breasted shore—
That blush tells tales. And now, I swear by all
The well-washed jewels strewn on fathom-sands,
That thou dost keep her looks, her words, her sighs,
Her laughs, her tears, her angers, and her frowns,
Balmed between memory's leaves; and ev'ry day
Dost count them o'er and o'er in solitude,
As pious monks count o'er their rosaries.
Now, tell me, did she give thee love for love?
Or didst thou make Midnight thy confidant,
Telling her all about thy lady's eyes,
How rich her cheek, how cold as death her scorn?
My lustrous Leopard, hast thou been in love?"
The Page's dark face flushed the hue of wine
In crystal goblet stricken by the sun;
His soul stood like a moon within his eyes,
Suddenly orbed; his passionate voice was shook
By trembling into music.—"Thee I love."
"Thou!" and the Lady, with a cruel laugh,
(Each silver throb went through him like a sword,)
Flung herself back upon her fringèd couch.
From which she rose upon him like a queen,
She rose and stabbed him with her angry eyes.
"'Tis well my father did not hear thee, boy,
Or else my pretty plaything of an hour
Might have gone sleep to-night without his head,
And I might waste rich tears upon his fate.
I would not have my sweetest plaything hurt.
Dost think to scorch me with those blazing eyes,
My fierce and lightning-blooded cub o' the sun?
Thy blood is up in riot on thy brow,
I' the face o' its monarch. Peace! By my grey sire,
Now could I slay thee with one look of hate,
One single look! My Hero! my Heart-god!
My dusk Hyperion, Bacchus of the Inds!
My Hercules, with chin as smooth as my own!
I am so sorry maid, I cannot wear
This great and proffered jewel of thy love.
Thou art too bold, methinks! Didst never fear
That on my poor deserts thy love would sit
Like a great diamond on a threadbare robe?
I tremble for 't. I pr'ythee, come to-morrow
And I will pasture you upon my lips
Until thy beard be grown. Go now, sir, go."
As thence she waved him with arm-sweep superb,
The light of scorn was cold within her eyes,
And withered his bloom'd heart, which, like a rose,
Had opened, timid, to the noon of love.
The lady sank again into her couch,
Panting and flushed; slowly she paled with thought;
When she looked up the sun had sunk an hour,
And one round star shook in the orange west.
The lady sighed, "It was my father's blood
That bore me, as a red and wrathful stream
Bears a shed leaf. I would recall my words,
And yet I would not.
Into what angry beauty rushed his face!
What lips! what splendid eyes! 'twas pitiful
To see such splendours ebb in utter woe.
His eyes half-won me. Tush! I am a fool;
The blood that purples in these azure veins,
Rich'd with its long course through a hundred earls,
Were fouled and mudded if I stooped to him.
My father loves him for his free wild wit;
I for his beauty and sun-lighted eyes.
To bring him to my feet, to kiss my hand,
Had I it in my gift, I'd give the world,
Its panting fire-heart, diamonds, veins of gold;
Its rich strands, oceans, belts of cedared hills,
Whence summer smells are struck by all the winds.
But whether I might lance him through the brain
With a proud look,—or whether sternly kill
Him with a single deadly word of scorn,—
Or whether yield me up,
And sink all tears and weakness in his arms,
And strike him blind with a strong shock of joy—
Alas! I feel I could do each and all.
I will be kind when next he brings me flowers,
Plucked from the shining forehead of the morn,
Ere they have oped their rich cores to the bee.
His wild heart with a ringlet will I chain,
And o'er him I will lean me like a heaven,
And feed him with sweet looks and dew-soft words,
And beauty that might make a monarch pale,
And thrill him to the heart's core with a touch;
Smile him to Paradise at close of eve,
To hang upon my lips in silver dreams."
LADY.
What, art thou done already? Thy tale is like
A day unsealed with sunset. What though dusk?
A dusky rod of iron hath power to draw
The lightnings from their heaven to itself.
The richest wage you can pay love is—love.
WALTER.
Then close the tale thyself, I drop the mask;
I am the sun-tanned Page; the Lady, thou!
I take thy hand, it trembles in my grasp;
I look in thy face and see no frown in it.
O may my spirit on hope's ladder climb
From hungry nothing up to star-packed space,
Thence strain on tip-toe to thy love beyond—
The only heaven I ask!
LADY.
My God! 'tis hard!
When I was all in leaf the frost winds came,
And now, when o'er me runs the summer's breath,
It waves but iron boughs.
WALTER.
What dost thou murmur?
Thy cheeks burn mad as mine. O untouched lips!
I see them as a glorious rebel sees
A crown within his reach. I'll taste their bliss
Although the price be death——
LADY (springing up).
Walter! beware!
These tell-tale heavens are list'ning earnestly.
O Sir! within a month my bridal bells
Will make a village glad. The fainting Earth
Is bleeding at her million golden veins,
And by her blood I'm bought. The sun shall see
A pale bride wedded to grey hair, and eyes
Of cold and cruel blue; and in the spring
A grave with daisies on it. [A pause.
O my friend!
We twain have met like ships upon the sea,
Who hold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet;
One little hour! and then, away they speed
On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam,
To meet no more. We have been foolish, Walter!
I would to God that I had never known
This secret of thy heart, or else had met thee
Years before this. I bear a heavy doom.
If thy rich heart is like a palace shattered,
Stand up amid the ruins of thy heart,
And with a calm brow front the solemn stars.
[Lady pauses; Walter remains silent.
'Tis four o'clock already. She, the moon,
Has climbed the blue steep of the eastern sky,
And sits and tarries for the coming night.
So let thy soul be up and ready armed,
In waiting till occasion comes like night;
As night to moons to souls occasion comes.
I am thine elder, Walter! in the heart,
I read thy future like an open book:
I see thou shalt have grief; I also see
Thy grief's edge blunted on the iron world.
Be brave and strong through all thy wrestling years,
A brave soul is a thing which all things serve;
When the great Corsican from Elba came,
The soldiers sent to take him, bound or dead,
Were struck to statues by his kingly eyes:
He spoke—they broke their ranks, they clasped his knees,
With tears along a cheering road of triumph
They bore him to a throne. Know when to die!
Perform thy work and straight return to God.
Oh! there are men who linger on the stage
To gather crumbs and fragments of applause
When they should sleep in earth—who, like the moon,
Have brightened up some little night of time,
And 'stead of setting when their light is worn,
Still linger, like its blank and beamless orb,
When daylight fills the sky. But I must go.
Nay, nay, I go alone! Yet one word more,—
Strive for the Poet's crown, but ne'er forget
How poor are fancy's blooms to thoughtful fruits;
That gold and crimson mornings, though more bright
Than soft blue days, are scarcely half their worth.
Walter, farewell! the world shall hear of thee.
[Lady still lingers.
I have a strange sweet thought. I do believe
I shall be dead in spring, and that the soul
Which animates and doth inform these limbs
Will pass into the daisies of my grave:
If memory shall ever lead thee there,
Through daisies I'll look up into thy face
And feel a dim sweet joy; and if they move,
As in a little wind, thou'lt know 't is I. [Lady goes.
WALTER (after a long interval, looking up).
God! what a light has passed away from earth
Since my last look! How hideous this night!
How beautiful the yesterday that stood
Over me like a rainbow! I am alone.
The past is past. I see the future stretch
All dark and barren as a rainy sea.