Accolon of Gaul, with Other Poems

by Madison Julius Cawein

PRELUDE.

WHY, dreams from dreams in dreams remembered! naught

Save this, alas! that once it seemed I thought

I wandered dim with someone, but I knew

Not who; most beautiful and good and true,

Yet sad through suffering; with curl-crowned brow,

Soft eyes and voice; so white she haunts me now:—

And when, and where?—At night in dreamland.

She

Led me athwart a flower-showered lea

Where trammeled puckered pansy and the pea;

Spread stains of pale-rod poppies rinced of rain,

So gorged with sun their hurt hearts ached with pain;

Heaped honeysuckles; roses lavishing beams,

Wherein I knew were huddled little dreams

Which laughed coy, hidden merriment and there

Blew quick gay kisses fragrancing the air.

And where a river bubbled through the sward

A mist lay sleepily; and it was hard

To see whence sprung it, to what seas it led,

How broadly spread and what it was it fled

So ceasless in its sighs, and bickering on

Into romance or some bewildering dawn

Of wisest legend from the storied wells

Of lost Baranton, where old Merlin dwells,

Nodding a white poll and a grand, gray beard

As if some Lake Ladyé he, listening, heard,

Who spake like water, danced like careful showers

With blown gold curls thro' drifts of wild-thorn flowers;

Loose, lazy arms in graceful movement tossed,

Float flower-like down a woodland vista, lost

In some peculiar note that wrings a tear

Slow down his withered cheek. And then steals near

Her sweet, lascivious brow's white wonderment,

And gray rude eyes, and hair which hath the scent

Of the wildwood Brécéliand's perfumes

In Brittany; and in it one red bloom's

Blood-drop thrust deep, and so "Sweet Viviane!"

All the glad leaves lisp like a young, soft rain

From top to top, until a running surge

The dark, witch-haunted solitude will urge,

That shakes and sounds and stammers as from sleep

Some giant were aroused; and with a leap

A samite-gauzy creature, glossy white,

Showers mocking kisses fast and, like a light

Beat by a gust to flutter and then done,

From Brécéliande and Merlin she is gone.

But still he sits there drowsing with his dreams;

A wondrous cohort hath he; many as gleams

That stab the moted mazes of a beech;

And each grave dream hath its own magic speech

To sting to tears his old eyes heavy—two

Hang, tangled brilliants, in his beard like dew:

And still faint murmurs of courts brave and fair,

And forms of Arthur and proud Guenevere,

Grave Tristram and rare Isoud and stout Mark,

Bold Launcelot, chaste Galahad the dark

Of his weak mind, once strong, glares up with, then,

—The instant's fostered blossoms—die again.

A roar of tournament, a rippling stir

Of silken lists that ramble into her,

That white witch-mothered beauty, Viviane,

The vast Brécéliande and dreams again.

Then Dagonet, King Arthur's fool, trips there,

A waggish cunning; glittering on his hair

A tinsel crown; and then will slightly sway

Thick leaves and part, and there Morgane the Fay

With haughty wicked eyes and lovely face

Studies him steady for a little space.

I.

"

THOU askest with thy studious eyes again,

Here where the restless forest hears the main

Toss in a troubled sleep and moan. Ah, sweet,

With joy and passion the kind hour's replete;

And what wild beauty here! where roughly run

Huge forest shadows from the westering sun,

The wood's a subdued power gentle as

Yon tame wild-things, that in the moss and grass

Gaze with their human eyes. Here grow the lines

Of pale-starred green; and where yon fountain shines

Urned in its tremulous ferns, rest we upon

This oak-trunk of God's thunder overthrown

Years, years agone; not where 'tis rotted brown

But where the thick bark's firm and overgrown

Of clambering ivy blackly berried; where

Wild musk of wood decay just tincts the air,

As if some strange shrub on some whispering way,

In some dewed dell, while dreaming of one May,

In longing languor weakly tried to wake

One sometime blossom and could only make

Ghosts of such dead aromas as it knew,

And shape a specter, budding thin as dew,

To haunt these sounding miles of solitude.

Troubled thou askest, Morgane, and the mood,

Unfathomed in thine eyes, glows rash and deep

As that in some wild-woman's found on sleep

By some lost knight upon a precipice,

Whom he hath wakened with a laughing kiss.

As that of some frail, elfin lady white

As if of watery moonbeams, filmy dight,

Who waves diaphanous beauty on some cliff

That drowsing purrs with moon-drenched pines; but if

The lone knight follow, foul fiends rise and drag

Him crashing down, while she, tall on the crag,

Triumphant mocks him with glad sorcery

Till all the wildwood echoes shout with glee.

As that bewildering mystery of a tarn,

Some mountain water, which the mornings scorn

To anadem with fire and leave gray;

To which some champion cometh when the Day

Hath tired of breding on his proud, young head

Flame-furry blooms and, golden chapletéd,

Sits rosy, trembling with full love for Night,

Who cometh sandaled; dark in crape; the light

Of her good eyes a marvel; her vast hair

Tortuous with stars,—as in some shadowy lair

The eyes of hunted wild things burn with rage,—

And on large bosoms doth his love assuage.

"He, coming thither in that haunted place,

Stoops low to quaff cool waters, when his face

Meets gurgling fairy faces in a ring

That jostle upward babbling; beckoning

Him deep to wonders secret built of old

By some dim witch: 'A city walled with gold,

With beryl battlements and paved with pearls,

Slim, lambent towers wrought of foamy swirls

Of alabaster, and that witch to love,

More beautiful to love than queens above.'—

He pauses troubled, but a wizard power,

In all his bronzen harness that mad hour

Plunges him—whither? what if he should miss

Those cloudy beauties and that creature's kiss?

Ah, Morgane, that same power Accolon

Saw potent in thine eyes and it hath drawn

Him deep to plunge—and to what breathless fate?—

Bliss?—which, too true, he hath well quaffed of late!

But, there!—may come what stealthy-footed Death

With bony claws to clutch away his breath!

And make him loveless to those eyes, alas!—

Fain must I speak that vision; thus it was:

"In sleep one plucked me some warm fleurs-de-lis,

Larger than those of earth; and I might see

Their woolly gold, loose, webby woven thro',—

Like fluffy flames spun,—gauzy with fine dew.

And 'asphodels!' I murmured; then, 'these sure

The Eden amaranths, so angel pure

That these alone may pluck them; aye and aye!

But with that giving, lo, she passed away

Beyond me on some misty, yearning brook

With some sweet song, which all the wild air took

With torn farewells and pensive melody

Touching to tears, strange, hopeless utterly.

So merciless sweet that I yearned high to tear

Those ingot-cored and gold-crowned lilies fair;

Yet over me a horror which restrained

With melancholy presence of two pained

And awful, mighty eyes that cowed and held

Me weeping while that sad dirge died or swelled

Far, far on endless waters borne away:

A wild bird's musick smitten when the ray

Of dawn it burned for graced its drooping head,

And the pale glory strengthened round it dead;

Daggered of thorns it plunged on, blind in night,

The slow blood ruby on its plumage white.

"Then, then I knew these blooms which she had given

Were strays of parting grief and waifs of Heaven

For tears and memories; too delicate

For eyes of earth such souls immaculate!

But then—my God! my God! thus these were left!

I knew then still! but of that song bereft—

That rapturous wonder grasping after grief—

Beyond all thought—weak thought that would be thief."

And bowed and wept into his hands and she

Sorrowful beheld; and resting at her knee

Raised slow her oblong lute and smote its chords;

But ere the impulse saddened into words

Said: "And didst love me as thy lips have spake

No visions wrought of sleep might such love shake.

Fast is all Love in fastness of his power,

With flame reverberant moated stands his tower;

Not so built as to chink from fact a beam

Of doubt and much less of a doubt from dream;

Such, the alchemic fires of Love's desires,

Which hug this like a snake, melt to gold wires

To chord the old lyre new whereon he lyres."

So ceased and then, sad softness in her eye

Sang to his dream a questioning reply:

"Will love grow less when dead the roguish Spring,

Who from gay eyes sowed violets whispering;

Peach petals in wild cheeks, wan-wasted thro'

Of withering grief, laid lovely 'neath the dew,

Will love grow less?

"Will love grow less when comes queen Summer tall,

Her throat a lily long and spiritual;

Rich as the poppied swaths—droned haunts of bees—

Her cheeks, a brown maid's gleaning on the leas,

Will love grow less?

"Will love grow less when Autumn sighing there

Broods with long frost streaks in her dark, dark hair;

Tears in grave eyes as in grave heavens above,

Deep lost in memories' melancholy, love,

Will love grow less?

"Will love grow less when Winter at the door

Begs on her scant locks icicles as hoar;

While Death's eyes hollow o'er her shoulder dart

A look to wring to tears then freeze the heart,

Will love grow less?"

And in her hair wept softly and her breast

Rose and was wet with tears; like as, distressed,

Night steals on Day rain sobbing thro' her curls.

"Tho' tears become thee even as priceless pearls,

Weep not for love's sake! mine no gloom of doubt,

But woe for sweet love's death such dreams brought out.

Nay, nay; crowned, throned and flame-anointed he

Kings our twin-kingdomed hearts eternally.

Love, high in Heaven beginning and to cease

No majesty when hearts are laid at peace;

But reign supreme, if souls have wrought as well,

A god in Heaven or a god in Hell.

Yea, Morgane, for the favor of his face

All our rich world of love I will retrace:

"Hurt in that battle where thy brother strove

With those five kings thou wot'st of, dearest love,

Wherein the five were worsted, I was brought

To some king's castle on my shield, methought,—

Out of the grind of spears and roar of swords,

From the loud shields of battle-bloody lords,

Culled from the mountained slain where Havoc sprawled

Gorged to her eyes with carnage, growling crawled;—

By some tall damsels tiremaids of some queen

Stately and dark, who moved as if a sheen

Of starlight spread her presence; and she came

With healing herbs and searched my wounds. A dame

So marvelous in raiment silvery

I feared lest some attendant chaste were she

To that high Holy Grael, which Arthur hath

Sought ever widely by hoar wood and path;—

Thus not for me, a worldly one, to love,

Who loved her even to wonder; skied above

His worship as our moon above the Main,

That passions upward yearning in great pain,

And suffers wearily from year to year,

She peaceful pitiless with virgin cheer.—

Ah, ideal love, as merciless as fate!

And, oh, that savage aching which must wait

For its fulfillment, tortured love in tears,

Until that beauty dreamed of many years

Bends over one from luminous skies, so grand

One's weakness fears to touch its mastering hand,

And hesitates and stammers nothings weak,

And loves and loves with love that can not speak!

Ah, there's the tyranny that breeds despair;

Breaks hearts whose strong youth by one golden hair

Coiled 'round the throat is sooner strangled dumb

Than by a glancing dagger thrust from gloom

Of an old arras at the very hour

One thought one safest in one's guarded tower.—

Thus, Morgane, worshiping that lady I

Was speechless; longing now to live, now die,

As her fine face suggested secrets of

Some passion kin to mine, or scorn of love

That dragged heroic humbleness to her feet,

For one long look that spake and made such sweet.

Ah, never dreamed I of what was to be,—

Nay! nay! how could I? while that agony

Of doubtful love denied my heart too much,

Too much to dream of that perfection such

As was to grant me boisterous hours of life

And sever all the past as with a knife!

"One night a tempest scourged and beat and lashed

The writhing forest and vast thunders crashed

Clamorous with clubs of leven, and anon,

Between the thunder pauses, seas would groan

Like some enormous curse a knight hath lured

From where it soared to maim it with his sword.

I, with eyes partly lidded, seemed to see

That cloudy, wide-wrenched night's eternity

Yawn hells of golden ghastliness; and sweep

Distending foams tempestuous up each steep

Of furious iron, where pale mermaids sit

With tangled hair black-blown, who, bit by bit,

Chant glimmering; beckoning on to strangling arms

Some hurt bark hurrying in the ravenous storm's

Resistless exultation; till there came

One breaker mounting inward, all aflame

With glow-worm green, to boom against the cliff

Its thunderous bulk—and there, sucked pale and stiff,

Tumbled in eddies up the howling rocks

My dead, drawn face; eyes lidless; matted locks

Oozed close with brine; tossed upward merrily

By streaming mermaids.—Madly seemed to see

The vampire echoes of the hoarse wood, who,

Collected, sought me; down the casement drew

Wet, shuddering fingers sharply; thronging fast

Up hooting turrets, fell thick screaming, cast

Down bastioned battlements trooped whistling off;

From the wild woodland growled a backward scoff.—

Then far away, hoofs of a thousand gales,

As wave rams wave up windy bluffs of Wales,

Loosed from the groaning hills, the cohorts loud,

Spirits of thunder, charioteered of cloud,

Roared down the rocking night cored with the glare

Of fiery eyeballs swimming; their drenched hair

Blown black as rain unkempt back from black brows,

Wide mouths of storm that voiced a hell carouse

And bulged tight cheeks with wind, rolled riotous by

Ruining to ruinous cliffs to headlong die.

"Once when the lightning made the casement glare

Squares touched to gold, between it rose her hair,

As if a raven's wing had cut the storm

Death-driven seaward; and a vague alarm

Stung me with terrors of surmise where hope

As yet pruned weak wings crippled by their scope.

And, lo, she kneeled low, radiant, wonderful,

Lawn-raimented and white; kneeled low,—'to lull

These thoughts of night such storms might shape in thee,

All such to peace and sleep,'—Ah, God! to see

Her like a benediction fleshed! with her

Hearing her voice! her cool hand wandering bare

Wistful on feverish brow thro' long deep curls!

To see her rich throat's carcaneted pearls

Rise as her pulses! eyes' large influence

Poured toward me straight as stars, whose sole defense

Against all storm is their bold beauty! then

To feel her breathe and hear her speak again!

'Love, mark,' I said or dreamed I moaned in dreams,

'How wails the tumult and the thunder gleams!

As if of Arthur's knights had charged two fields

Bright as sun-winds of dawn; swords, spears and shields

Flashed lordly shocked; had,—to a man gone down

In burst of battle hurled,—lain silent sown.

Love, one eternal tempest thus with thee

Were calm, dead calm! but, no!—for thee in me

Such calm proves tempest. Speak; I feel thy voice

Throb soft, caressing silence, healing noise.'

"Is radiance loved of radiance? day of day?

Lithe beam of beam and laughing ray of ray?

Hope loved of hope and happiness of joy,

Or love of love, who hath the world for toy?

And thou—thou lov'st my voice? fond Accolon!

Why not—yea, why not?—nay!—I prithee!—groan

Not for that thou hast had long since thine all.'

She smiled; and dashed down storm's black-crumbled wall,

Baptizing moonlight bathed her, foot and face

Deluging, as my soul brake toward her grace

With worship from despair and secret grief,

That felt hot tears of heartsease sweet and brief.

And one immortal night to me she said

Words, lay I white in death had raised me red.

'Rest now,' they were, 'I love thee with such love!—

'Some speak of secret love, but God above

Hath knowledge and divinement.'... Passionate low,

'To lie by thee to-night my mind is':—So

She laughed;—'Sleep well!—for me? why, thy fast word

Of knighthood, look thou, and this naked sword

Laid in betwixt us.... Let it be a wall

Strong between love and lust and lov'st me all in all.'

Undid the goodly gold from her clasped waist;

Unbound deep locks; and, like a blossom faced,

Stood sweet an unswayed stem that ran to bud

In breasts and face a graceful womanhood.

And fragrance was to her as natural

As odor to the rose; and she a tall,

White ardor and white fervor in the room

Moved, some pale presence that with light doth bloom.

Then all mine eyes and lips and limbs were fire;

My tongue delirious throbbed a lawless lyre,

That harped loud words of laud for loveliness,

Inspired of such, but these I can not guess.

Then she, as pure as snows of peaks that keep

Sun-cloven crowns of virgin, vanquishing steep,

Frowned on me, and the thoughts, that in my brain

Had risen a glare of gems, set dull like rain,

And fair I spake her and with civil pain:

"'Thine, sweet, a devil's kindness which is given

For earthly pleasure but bars out from Heaven.

Temptation harbored, like a bloody rust

On a bright blade, leaves ugly stains; and lust

Is love's undoing when love's limbs are cast

A commonness to desire that makes unchaste;

And this warm nearness of what should be hid

Makes love a lawless love. But, thou hast bid;—

Rest thou; I love thee, how,—I only know:

But all that love shall shout "out!" at love's foe.'

And turning sighed into my hair; and she

Stretched the broad blade's division suddenly.

And so we lay its fire between us twain;

Unsleeping I, for, oh, that devil pain

Of passion in me that strove up and stood

A rebel wrangling with the brain and blood!

An hour stole by: she slept or seemed to sleep.

The winds of night came vigorous from the deep

With storm gusts of fresh-watered field and wold

That breathed of ocean meadows bluely rolled.

I drowsed and time passed; stealing as for one

Whose drowsy life dreams in Avilion.

Vast bulks of black, wind-shattered rack went down

High casement squares of heaven, a crystal crown

Of bubbled moonlight on each monstrous head,

Like as great ghosts of giant kings long dead.

And then, meseemed, she lightly laughed and sighed,

So soft a taper had not bent aside,

And leaned a soft face seen thro' loosened hair

Above me, whisp'ring as if sweet in prayer,

'Behold, the sword! I take the sword away!'

It curved and clashed where the strewn rushes lay;

Shone glassy, glittering like a watery beam

Of moonlight in the moonlight. I did deem

She moved in sleep and dreamed perverse, nor wist

That which she did until two fierce lips kissed

My wondering eyes to wakement of her thought.

Then spake I, 'Love, my word! is it then naught?

Nay, nay, my word albeit the sword be gone!—

And wouldst thou try me? rest thou safe till dawn!

I will not thus forswear! my word stands fast!'

But now I felt hot, desperate kisses cast

On hair, eyes, throat and lips and over and over,

Low laughter of 'Sweet wretch! and thou—a lover?

What is that word if she thou gavest it

Unbind thee of it? lo, and she sees fit!'

Ah, Morgane, Morgane, then I knew 'twas thou,

Thou! thou! who only could such joy allow."

"And, oh, unburied passion of that night;

The sleepy birds too early piped of light;

Too soon came Light girt with a rosy breeze,

Strong from his bath, to wrestle with the trees,

A thewy hero; and, alas! too soon

Our scutcheoned oriel stained was overstrewn

Of Dawn's air-jewels; then I sang a strain

Of sleep that in my memory strives again:

"Ethereal limbed the lovely Sleep should sit,

Her starbeam locks with some vague splendor lit,

Like that the glow-worm's emerald radiance sheds

Thro' twilight dew-drops globed on lily-beds.

Her face as fair as if of graven stone,

Yet dim and airy us a cloud alone

In the bare blue of Heaven, smiling sweet,

For languorous thoughts of love that flit and fleet

Short-rainbow-winged about her crumpled hair;

Yet on her brow a pensiveness more fair,

Ungraspable and sad and lost, I wist,

Than thoughts of maiden whom her love hath kissed,

Who knows, thro' deepening eyes and drowsy breath,

Him weeping bent whiles she drifts on to death.

Full sweet and sorrowful and blithe withal

Should be her brow; not wholly spiritual,

But tinged with mortal for the mortal mind,

And smote with flushings from some Eden wind;

Hinting at heart's ease and a god's desire

Of pleasure hastening in a garb of fire

From some dim country over storied seas

Glassed of content and foamed of mysteries.

Her ears two sea-pearls' morning-tender pink,

And strung to harkening as if on a brink

Night with profundity of death and doubt,

Yet touched with awfulness of light poured out.

Ears strung to palpitations of heart throbs

As sea-shells waver with dim ocean sobs.

One hand, curved like a mist on dusking skies,

Hollowing smooth brows to shade dark velvet eyes,—

Dark-lashed and dewed of tear-drops beautiful,—

To sound the cowering conscience of the dull,

Sleep-sodden features in their human rest,

Ere she dare trust her pureness to that breast.

Large limbs diaphanous and fleeced with veil

Of wimpled heat, wove of the pulsing pale

Of rosy midnight, and stained thro' with stars

In golden cores; clusters of quivering bars

Of nebulous gold, twined round her fleecily.

A lucid shape vague in vague mystery.

Untrammeled bosoms swelling free and white

And prodigal of balm; cupped lilies bright,

That to the famished mind yield their pure, best,

Voluptuous sleep like honey sucked in rest."

Thus they communed. And there her castle stood

With slender towers ivied o'er the wood;

An ancient chapel creeper-buried near;

A forest vista, where faint herds of deer

Stalked like soft shadows; where the hares did run,

Mavis and throstle caroled in the sun.

For it was Morgane's realm, embowered Gore;

That rooky pile her palace whence she bore

With Urience sway; but he at Camelot

Knew naught of intrigues here at Chariot.