A CRUSADER’S TOMB
1230
Unnamed, unknown:—his hands across his breast
Set in sepulchral rest,
In yon low cave-like niche the warrior lies,
—A shrine within a shrine,—
Full of gray peace, while day to darkness dies.
Then the forgotten dead at midnight come
And throng their chieftain’s tomb,
Murmuring the toils o’er which they toil’d, alive,
The feats of sword and love;
And all the air thrills like a summer hive.
—How so, thou say’st!—This is the poet’s right!
He looks with larger sight
Than they who hedge their view by present things,
The small, parochial world
Of sight and touch: and what he sees, he sings.
The steel-shell’d host, that, gleaming as it turns,
Like autumn lightning burns,
A moment’s azure, the fresh flags that glance
As cornflowers o’er the corn,
Till war’s stern step show like a gala dance,
He also sees; and pierces to the heart,
Scanning the genuine part
Each Red-Cross pilgrim plays: Some, gold-enticed;
By love or lust or fame
Urged; or who yearn to kiss the grave of Christ
And find their own, life-wearied:—Motley band!
O! ere they quit the Land
How maim’d, how marr’d, how changed from all that pride
In which so late they left
Orwell or Thames, with sails out-swelling wide
And music tuneable with the timing oar
Clear heard from shore to shore;
All Europe streaming to the mystic East!
—Now on their sun-smit ranks
The dusky squadrons close in vulture-feast,
And that fierce Day-star’s blazing ball their sight
Sears with excess of light;
Or through dun sand-clouds the blue scimitar’s edge
Slopes down like fire from heaven,
Mowing them as the thatcher mows the sedge.
Then many a heart remember’d, as the skies
Grew dark on dying eyes,
Sweet England; her fresh fields and gardens trim;
Her tree-embower’d halls;
And the one face that was the world to him.
—And one who fought his fight and held his way,
Through life’s long latter day
Moving among the green, green English meads,
Ere in this niche he took
His rest, oft ’mid his kinsfolk told the deeds
Of that gay passage through the Midland sea;
Cyprus and Sicily;
And how the Lion-Heart o’er the Moslem host
Triumph’d in Ascalon
Or Acre, by the tideless Tyrian coast,
Yet never saw the vast Imperial dome,
Nor the thrice-holy Tomb:—
—As that great vision of the hidden Grail
By bravest knights of old
Unseen:—seen only of pure Parcivale.
The ‘Thud Crusade,’ 1189-1193, is the subject of this poem. Richard Coeur de Lion carried his followers by way of Sicily and Cyprus: making a transient conquest of the latter. In the Holy Land the siege of Acre consumed the time and strength of the Crusaders. They suffered terribly in the wilderness of Mount Carmel, and when at last preparing to march on Jerusalem (1192) were recalled to Ascalon. Richard now advanced to Bethany, but was unable to reach the Holy City. The tale is that while riding with a party of knights one of them called out, ‘This way, my lord, and you will see Jerusalem.’ But Richard hid his face and said, ‘Alas!—they who are not worthy to win the Holy City are not worthy to behold it.’
The vast Imperial dome; The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built by the Emperor Constantine; a.d. 326-335.
The hidden Grail; This vision forms the subject of one of Tennyson’s noblest Idylls.
A BALLAD OF EVESHAM
August 4: 1265
Earl Simon on the Abbey tower
In summer sunshine stood,
While helm and lance o’er Greenhill heights
Come glinting through the wood.
‘My son!’ he cried, ‘I know his flag
Amongst a thousand glancing’:—
Fond father! no!—’tis Edward stern
In royal strength advancing.
The Prince fell on him like a hawk
At Al’ster yester-eve,
And flaunts his captured banner now
And flaunts but to deceive:—
—Look round! for Mortimer is by,
And guards the rearward river:—
The hour that parted sire and son
Has parted them for ever!
‘Young Simon’s dead,’ he thinks, and look’d
Upon his living son:
‘Now God have mercy on our souls,
Our bodies are undone!
But, Hugh and Henry, ye can fly
Before their bowmen smite us—
They come on well! But ’tis from me
They learn’d the skill to fight us.’
—‘For England’s cause, and England’s laws,
With you we fight and fall!’
—‘Together, then, and die like men,
And Heaven has room for all!’
—Then, face to face, and limb to limb,
And sword with sword inwoven,
That stubborn courage of the race
On Evesham field was proven
O happy hills! O summer sky
Above the valley bent!
Your peacefulness rebukes the rage
Of blood on blood intent!
No thought was then for death or life
Through that long dreadful hour,
While Simon ’mid his faithful few
Stood like an iron tower,
’Gainst which the winds and waves are hurl’d
In vain, unmoved, foursquare;
And round him raged the insatiate swords
Of Edward and De Clare:
And round him in the narrow combe
His white-cross comrades rally,
While ghastly gashings, cloud the beck
And crimson all the valley,
And triple sword-thrusts meet his sword,
And thrice the charge he foils,
Though now in threefold flood the foe
Round those devoted boils:
And still the light of England’s cause
And England’s love was o’er him,
Until he saw his gallant boy
Go down in blood before him:—
He hove his huge two-handed blade,
He cried ‘’Tis time to die!’
And smote around him like a flail,
And clear’d a space to lie:—
‘Thank God!’—no more;—nor now could life
From loved and lost divide him:—
And night fell o’er De Montfort dead,
And England wept beside him.
In the words given here to Simon (and, indeed, in the bulk of my narrative) I have almost literally followed Prothero’s Life. The struggle, like other critical conflicts in the days of unprofessional war, was very brief.