XXXVI.
Then in the night a trumpet; and the dull
Close thud of horse and clash of Puritan arms;
And glimmering helms swept by me. Sorrowful
I stood and waited till upon the storm's
Black breast, the Manse, a burning carbuncle,
Blazed like a battle-beacon, and alarms
Of onslaught clanged around it; then, like one
Who bears with him God's curse, I galloped on.
The Forester
I met him here at Ammendorf one Spring.
It was the end of April and the Harz,
Veined to their ruin-crested summits, seemed
One pulse of tender green and delicate gold,
Beneath a heaven that was like the face
Of girlhood waking into motherhood.
Along the furrowed meadow, freshly ploughed,
The patient oxen, loamy to the knees,
Plodded or lowed or snuffed the fragrant soil;
And in each thorntree hedge the wild bird sang
A song to Spring, made of its own wild heart
And soul, that heard the dairy-maiden May's
Heart beating like a star at break of day,
As, kissing ripe the blossoms, she drew near,
Her mouth's sweet rose all dew-drops and perfume.
Here at this inn and underneath this tree
We took our wine, the morning prismed in its
Flame-angled gold.—A goodly vintage that!
Tang with the ripeness of full twenty years.
Rare! I remember!—wine that spurred the blood,
That brought the heart glad to the limbered lip,
And made the eyes unlatticed casements where
A man's true soul you could not help but see.
As royal a Rhenish, I will vouch to say,
As that, old legends tell, which Necromance
And Magic keep, gnome-guarded, in huge casks
Of antique make deep in the Kyffhäuser,
The Cellar of the Knights near Sittendorf.—
So solaced of that wine we sat an hour.
He told me his intent in coming here.
His name was Rudolf; and his native home,
Franconia; but no word of parentage:
Only his mind to don the buff and green
And live a forester with us and be
Enfellowed in the Duke of Brunswick's train,
And for the Duke's estate even now was bound.
Tall was he for his age and strong and brown,
And lithe of limb; and with a face that seemed
Hope's counterpart—but with the eyes of doubt;
Deep restless disks, instinct with gleaming night,
That seemed to say, "We're sure of earth, at least
For some short space, my friend; but afterward—
Nay! ransack not to-morrow till to-day,
Lest it engulf thy joy before it is!"—
And when he spoke, the fire in his eyes
Worked stealthy as a hunted animal's;
Or like the Count von Hackelnburg's that turn,
Feeling the unseen presence of a fiend.
Then, as it chanced, old Kurt had come that morn
With some six of his jerkined foresters
From the Thuringian forest; wet with dew,
And fresh as morn with early travel; bound
For Brunswick, Dummburg and the Hakel passed.
Chief huntsman he then to our lord the Duke,
And father of the loveliest maiden here
In Ammendorf, the sunny Ilsabe:
Her mother dead, the gray-haired father prized
His daughter more than all that men hold dear;
His only happiness, who was beloved
Of all as Lora of Thuringia was,
For gentle ways that spoke a noble soul,
Winning all hearts to love her and to praise,
As might a great and beautiful thought that holds
Us by the simplest words.—Her eyes were blue
As the high influence of a summer day.
Her hair,—serene and braided over brows
White as a Harz dove's wing,—was auburn brown,
And deep as mists the sun has drenched with gold.
And her young presence—well, 't was like a song,
A far Tyrolean melody of love,
Heard on an Alpine path at close of day
When shepherds homeward lead their tinkling flocks.
And when she left, being with you awhile,—
How shall I say it?—'t was as when one hath
Beheld an Undine by the moonlit Rhine,
Who, ere the mind adjusts a thought, is gone,
And in your soul you wonder if a dream.
Some thirty years ago it was;—and I,
Commissioner of the Duke—(no sinecure
I can assure you)—had scarce reached the age
Of thirty,—that we sat here at our wine;
And 't was through me that Rudolf,—whom at first,
From some rash words dropped then in argument,
The foresterhood was like to be denied,—
Was then enfellowed. "Yes," said I, "he's young.
Kurt, he is young; but see, a wiry frame;
A chamois footing and a face for deeds;
An eye that likes me not; too quick to turn;
But that may be the restless soul within;
A soul perhaps with virtues that have been
Severely tried and could not stand the test;
These be thy care, Kurt; and if not too deep
In vices of the flesh, discover them,
As divers bring lost riches up from ooze.
Thou hast a daughter; let him be thy son."
A year thereafter was it that I heard
Of Rudolf's passion for Kurt's Ilsabe;
Then their betrothal. And it was from this,—
Good Mother Mary! how she haunts me still!
Sweet Ilsabe! whose higher womanhood,
True as the touchstone which philosophers feign
Transmutes to gold base metals it may touch,
Had turned to good all evil in this man,—
Surmised I of the excellency which
Refinement of her purer company,
And contact with her innocence, had resolved
His fiery nature to, conditioning slave.
And so I came from Brunswick—as, you know,
Is custom of the Duke or, by his seal
Commissioned proxy, his commissioner—
To test the marksmanship of Rudolf, who
Succeeded Kurt with marriage of his child,
An heir of Kuno.—He?—Greatgrandfather
Of Kurt; and of this forestkeepership
The first possessor; thus established here—
Or this the tale they tell on winter nights:
Kuno, once in the Knight of Wippach's train,
Rode on a grand hunt with the Duke, who came,—
Grandfather of the father of our Duke,—
With much magnificence of knights and squires,
Great velvet-vestured nobles, cloaked and plumed,
To hunt Thuringian deer. Then morn,—too quick
To bid good-morrow,—was too slow for these,
And on the wind-trod hills recumbent yawned
Disturbed an hour too soon; all sleepy-eyed,
Like some young milkmaid whom the cock hath roused,
Who sits and rubs stiff eyes that still will close.
Horns sang and deer-hounds tugged a whimpering leash,
Or, loosened, bounded through the baying glens:
And ere the mountain mists, compact of white,
Broke wild before the azure spears of day,
The far-off hunt, that woke the woods to life,
Seemed but the heart-beat of the ancient hills.
And then, near noon, within a forest brake,
The ban-dogs roused a red gigantic stag,
Lashed to whose back with gnarly-knotted cords,
And borne along like some pale parasite,
A man shrieked: tangle-bearded, and wild hair
A mane of forest-burs. The man himself,
Emaciated and half-naked from
The stag's mad flight through headlong rocks and trees,
One bleeding bruise, with eyes like holes of fire.
For such the law then: when the peasant chased
Or slew the dun deer of his tyrant lords,
If seized, as punishment the withes and spine
Of some strong stag, a gift to him of game,
Enough till death—death in the antlered herd,
Or slow starvation in the haggard hills.
Then was the great Duke glad, and forthwith cried
To all his hunting train a rich reward
For him who slew the stag and saved the man,
But death for him who slew both man and stag.
So plunged the hunt after the hurrying slot,
A shout and glimmer through the sounding woods,—
Like some mad torrent that the hills have loosed
With death for goal.—'T was late; and none had risked
That shot as yet,—too desperate the risk
Beside the poor life and a little gold,—
When this young Kuno, with fierce eyes, wherein
Hunt and impatience kindled reckless flame,
Cried, "Has the dew then made our powder wet?
Or have we left our marksmanship at home?
Here's for its heart! the Fiend direct my ball!"—
And fired into a covert deeply packed,
An intertangled wall of matted night,
Wherein the eye might vainly strive and strive
To pierce one fathom, earn one foot beyond.
But, ha! the huge stag staggered from the brake
Hit full i' the heart. And that wan wretch, unbound,
Was ta'en and cared for. Then his grace, the Duke,
Charmed with the eagle aim, called Kuno up,
And there to him and his forever gave
The forestkeepership.
But envious tongues
Were soon at wag; and whispered went the tale
Of how the shot was free, and how the balls
Used by young Kuno were free bullets—which
To say is: Lead by magic moulded, in
The influence and directed, of the Fiend.
Of some effect these tales, and had some force
Even with the Duke, who lent an ear so far
As to ordain Kuno's descendants all
To proof of skill ere their succession to
The father's office. Kurt himself hath shot
The silver ring out o' the popinjay's beak—
A good shot he, you see, who would succeed.
Of these enchanted bullets let me speak:
There may be such; our Earth has things as strange,
Perhaps, and stranger, that we doubt not of,
While we behold, not only 'neath the thatch
Of Ignorance's hovel, but within
The pictured halls of Wisdom's palaces,
How Superstition sits an honored guest.
A cross-way let it be among the hills;
A cross-way in a solitude of pines;
And on the lonely cross-way you must draw
A blood-red circle with a bloody sword;
And round the circle, runic characters,
Gaunt and satanic; here a skull, and there
A scythe and cross-bones, and an hour-glass here;
And in the centre, fed with coffin-wood,
Stol'n from the grave of one, a murderer,
A smouldering fire. Eleven of the clock
The first ball leaves the mold—the sullen lead
Mixed with three bullets that have hit their mark,
And blood, the wounded Sacramental Host
Stolen, and hence unhallowed, oozed, when shot
Fixed to a riven pine. Ere twelve o'clock
With never a word until that hour sound,
Must all the balls be cast; and these must be
In number three and sixty; three of which
The Fiend's dark agent, demon Sammael,
Claims for his master and stamps for his own
To hit aside their mark, askew for harm.
The other sixty shall not miss their mark.
No cry, no word, no whisper, even though
Vague, gesturing shapes, that loom like moonlit mists,
Their faces human but with animal forms,
Rise thick around and threaten to destroy.
No cry, no word, no whisper should there come,
Weeping, a wandering shadow like the girl
You love, or loved, now lost to you, her eyes
Hollow with tears; all palely beckoning
With beautiful arms, or censuring; her face
Sad with a desolate love; who, if you speak
Or waver from that circle—hideous change!—
Shrinks to a wrinkled hag, whose harpy hands
Shall tear you limb from limb with horrible mirth.
Nor be deceived if some far midnight bell
Strike that anticipated hour; nor leave
By one short inch the circle, for, unseen
Though now they be, Hell's minions still are there,
Watching with flaming eyes to seize your soul.
But when the hour of midnight sounds, be sure
You have your bullets, neither more nor less;
For if through fear one more or less you have,
Your soul is forfeit to Hell's majesty.—
Then while the hour of midnight strikes, will come
A noise of galloping hoofs and outriders,
Shouting; six midnight steeds,—their nostrils, pits
Of burning blood,—postilioned, roll a stage,
Black and with groaning wheels of spinning fire:
"Room there!—ho! ho!—who bars the mountain-way?
On over him!"—But fear not, nor fare forth;
'T is but the last trick of your bounden slave.
And ere the red moon rushes through the clouds
And dives again, high the huge leaders leap,
Their fore-hoofs fire, and their eye-balls flame,
And, spun a spiral spark into the night,
Whistling the phantom flies and fades away.
Some say there comes no stage; that Hackelnburg,
Wild-huntsman of the Harz, comes dark as storm,
With rain and wind and demon dogs of Hell,
The terror of his hunting-horn, an owl,
And the dim deer he hunts, rush on before;
The forests crash, and whirlwinds are the leaves,
And all the skies a-thunder, as he hurls
Straight on the circle, horse and hounds and stag.
And at the last, plutonian-cloaked, there comes,
Upon a stallion gaunt and lurid black,
The minister of Satan, Sammael,
Who greets you, and informs you, and assures.
Enough! these wives'-tales told, to what I've seen:
To Ammendorf I came; and Rudolf here
With Kurt and his assembled men, I met.
The abundant year,—like some sweet wife,—a-smile
At her brown baby, Autumn, in her arms,
Stood 'mid the garnered harvests of her fields
Dreaming of days that pass like almoners
Scattering their alms in minted gold of flowers;
Of nights, that forest all the skies with stars,
Wherethrough the moon—bare-bosomed huntress—rides,
One cloud before her like a flying fawn.
Then I proposed the season's hunt; till eve
The test of Rudolf's skill postponed, at which
He seemed impatient. And 't was then I heard
How he an execrable marksman was;
And tales that told of near, incredible shots,
That missed their mark; or how his flint-lock oft
Flashed harmless powder, while the curious deer
Stood staring; as in pity of such aim
Bidding him try his marksmanship again.
Howbeit, he that day acquitted him
Of all this gossip; in that day's long hunt
Missing no shot, however rashly made
Or distant through the intercepting trees.
And the piled, various game brought down of all
Good marksmen of Kurt's train had not sufficed,
Doubled, nay, trebled, there to match his heap.
And marvelling the hunters saw, nor knew
How to excuse them. My indulgence giv'n,
Some told me that but yesterday old Kurt
Had made his daughter weep and Rudolf frown,
By vowing end to their betrothéd love,
Unless that love developed better aim
Against the morrow's test; his ancestors'
High fame should not be tarnished. So he railed;
And bowed his gray head and sat moodily;
But looking up, forgave all when he saw
Tears in his daughter's eyes and Rudolf gone
Out in the night black with approaching storm.
Before this inn, yonder and here, they stood,
The holiday village come to view the trial:
Fair maidens and their comely mothers with
Their sweethearts and their husbands. And I marked
Kurt and his daughter here; his florid face
All jubilant at Rudolf's great success;
Hers, radiant with happiness; for this
Her marriage eve—so had her father said—
Should Rudolf come successful from the hunt.
So pleased was I with what I'd seen him do,
The trial of skill superfluous seemed, and so
Was on the bare brink of announcing, when
Out of the western heaven's deepening red,—
Like a white message dropped by rosy lips,—
A wild dove clove the luminous winds and there,
Upon that limb, a peaceful moment sat.
Then I, "Thy rifle, Rudolf! pierce its head!"
Cried pointing, "and chief-forester art thou!"—
Why did he falter with a face as strange
As a dark omen? did his soul foresee
What was to be with tragic prescience?—
What a bad dream it all seems now!—Again
I see him aim. Again I hear the cry,
"My dove! O Rudolf, do not kill my dove!"
And from the crowd, like some sweet dove herself,
A fluttering whiteness, came our Ilsabe—
Too late! the rifle cracked ... The unhurt dove
Rose, beating frightened wings—but Ilsabe!...
The sight! the sight!... lay smitten; a red stain,
Sullying the pureness of her bridal bodice,
Showed where the ball had pierced her through the heart.
And Rudolf?—Ah, of him you still would know?—
When he beheld this thing that he had done,
Why he went mad—I say—but others not.
An hour he raved of how her life had paid
For the unholy bullets he had used,
And how his soul was three times lost and damned.
I say that he went mad and fled forthwith
Into the haunted Harz.—Some say, to die
The prey of demons of the Dummburg ruin.
I, one of those less superstitious, say,
He in the Bodé—from that blackened rock,—
Whereon were found his hunting-cap and gun,—
The Devil's Dancing Place, did leap and die.
My Lady of Verne
It all comes back as the end draws near;
All comes back like a tale of old!
Shall I tell you all? Will you lend an ear?
You, with your face so stern and cold;
You, who have found me dying here ...
Lady Leona's villa at Verne—
You have walked its terraces, where the fount
And statue gleam and the fluted urn;
Its world-old elms, that are avenues gaunt
Of shadow and flame when the West is a-burn.
'T is a lonely region of tarns and trees,
And hollow hills that circle the West;
Haunted of rooks and the far-off sea's
Immemorial vague unrest;
A land of sorrowful memories.
A gray sad land, where the wind has its will,
And the sun its way with the fruits and flowers;
Where ever the one all night is shrill,
And ever the other all day brings hours
Of glimmering silence that dead days fill.
A gray sad land, where her girlhood grew
To womanhood proud, that the hill-winds seemed
To give their heart, like melody, to;
And the stars, their soul, like a dream undreamed—
The only glad thing that the sad land knew.
My Lady, you know, how nobly born!
Haughty of form, with a head that rose
Like a dream of empire; love and scorn
Made haunts of her eyes; and her lips were bows
Whence pride imperious flashed flower and thorn.
And I—oh, I was nobody: one
Her worshiper only; who chose to be
Silent, seeing that love alone
Was his only badge of nobility,
Set in his heart's escutcheon.
How long ago does the springtime look,
When we wandered away to the hills! the hills,—
Like the land in the tale in the fairy-book,—
Covered with gold of the daffodils,
And gemmed with the crocus by brae and brook!
When I gathered a branch from a hawthorn tree,
For her hair or bosom, from boughs that hung
Odorous of heaven and purity;
And she thanked me smiling; then merrily sung,
Laughingly sung, while she looked at me:—
"There dwelt a princess over the sea—
Right fair was she, right fair was she—
Who loved a squire of low degree,
But married a king of Brittany—
Ah, woe is me!
"And it came to pass on the wedding-day—
So people say, so people say—
That they found her dead in her bridal array,
Dead, and her lover beside her lay—
Ah, well-away!
"A sour stave for your sweets," she said,
Pressing the blossoms against her lips:
Then petal by petal the branch she shred,
Snowing the blooms from her finger-tips,
Tossing them down for her feet to tread.
What to her was the look I gave
Of love despised! though she seemed to start,
Seeing, and said, with a quick hand-wave,
"Why, one would think that that was your heart,"
While her face with a sudden thought grew grave.
But I answered nothing. And so to her home
We came in the twilight; falling clear,
With a few first stars and a moon's curved foam,
Over the hush of meadow and mere,
Whence the boom of the bittern would often come.
Would you think that she loved me?—Who can say?—
What a riddle unread was she to me!—
When I kissed her fingers and turned away
I wanted to speak, but—what cared she,
Though her eyes looked soft and she begged me stay!
Though she lingered to watch me—that might be
A slim moon-beam or the evening haze,—
But never my Lady's drapery
Or wistful face!—in the ivy maze....
Leona of Verne—why, what cared she!
So the days went by, and the Summer wore
Her hot heart out; and, a mighty slayer,
The Autumn harried the land and shore,
And the world was red with his wrecks; but grayer
That land with the ghosts of the nevermore.
The sheaves of the Summer had long been bound;
The harvests of Autumn had long been past;
And the snows of the Winter lay deep around,
When the dark news came and I knew at last;
And the reigning woe of my heart was crowned.
So I sought her here, the young Earl's bride;
In the ancient room at the oriel dreaming,
Pale as the blooms in her hair; and, wide,
Her robe's rich satin, flung stormily, gleaming,
Like shimmering silver, twilight-dyed.
I marked as I stole to her side that tears
Were vaguely large in her beautiful eyes;
That the loops of pearls on her throat, and years
Old lace on her bosom were heaved with sighs;
So I spoke what I thought—"Then, it appears"—
And stopped with, it seemed, my soul in my gaze—
"That you are not happy, Leona of Verne?
There is that at your heart which—well, betrays
These mocking mummeries.—Live and learn!—
And this is the truth that the poet says:—
"'I went to my love and I told with my heart,
In words of the soul, that are silent in speech,
All of my passion, too sacred for art;
But she heard me not—for I could not reach
Her in that world of which she is part.'—
"That world, where I saw you as one afar
Sees palms and waters, and knows that sands,
Pitiless sands, before him are;
Yet follows ever with helpless hands
Till he sinks at last.—You were my star,
"My hope, my heaven!—I loved you!... Life
Is less than nothing to me!"... She turned,
With a wild look, saying—"Now I am his wife
You come and tell me!—Indeed you are learn'd
In the language of hearts that's unheard!"... A Knife,
As she ceased and leaned on a cabinet,—
A curve of scintillant steel, keen, cold,—
Fell icily clashing; some curio met
Among Asian antiques, bronze and gold,
Mystical, curiously graven and set.
A Bactrian dagger, whose slightest prick
Through its ancient poison was death, I knew;
If true that she loved me—then!—And quick
To the unspoken thought she replied, "'T is true!
I have loved you long, and my soul was sick,
"Sick for the love that has made me weak,
Weak to your will even now!"—And more
She said, in my arms, that I shall not speak—
And the dagger there on the polished floor
Ever her eyes, while she spoke, would seek.
"'And it came to pass on the wedding-day'"—
Then my lips for a moment were crushed to hers—
"'That they found her dead in her bridal array,'"
She sang; then said, "You finish the verse!
Finish the song, for you know the way."
And I whispered "yes," for my mind had thought
Her own thought through—that life were a hell
To her as to me,—So the blade I caught
With a sudden hand; and she leaned, and—well,
What a little wound, and the blood it brought
To crimson her bosom!—I set her there
In that carven chair; then turned the blade,—
With its glittering haft one savage glare
Of gold and jewels, wildly inlaid,—
To my breast, for the poisonous point rent bare.
A stain of blood on her bosom, and one
Black red o'er my heart.—You see, 't is good
To die so for love!... Does the sinking sun,
Through the dull vast west burst banked with blood?—
Or is it that life will at last have done?...
So you are her husband? and—well, you see,
You see she is dead ... But your face, how white!
—Is it with hate or with misery?—
What matters it now!—For, at last, the night
Falls and the silence covers me.
An Old Tale Re-told
From the terrace here, where the hills indent,
You can see the uttermost battlement
Of the castle there; the Cliffords' home;
Where the seasons go and the seasons come
And never a footstep else doth fall
Save the prowling fox's; the ancient hall
Echoes no voice save the owlet's call:
Its turret chambers are homes for the bat;
And its courts are tangled and wild to see;
And where in the cellar was once the rat,
The viper and toad move stealthily.
Long years have passed since the place was burned,
And he sailed to the wars in France and earned
The name that he bears of the bold and true
On his tomb. Long years, since my lord, Sir Hugh,
Lived; and I was his favorite page,
And the thing then happened; and he of an age
When a man will love and be loved again,
Or hie to the wars or a monastery,
Or toil till he conquer his heart's sore pain,
Or drink and forget it and finally bury.
I was his page. And often we fared
Through the Clare demesnes, in autumn, hawking;
If the Baron had known, how they would have glared
'Neath their bushy brows, those eyes of mocking!—
That last of the Strongbows, Richard, I mean—
And growling some six of his henchmen lean
To mount and after this Clifford and hang
With his crop-eared page to the nearest oak,
How he would have cursed us while he spoke!
For Clare and Clifford had ever a fang
In the other's side ... And I hear the clang
Of his rage in the hall when the hawker told—
If he told!—how we met on the autumn wold
His daughter, sweet Clara of Clare, the day
Her hooded tiercel its brails did burst,
And trailing its jesses, came flying our way—
An untrained haggard the falconer cursed
While he tried to secure:—as the eyas flew
Slant, low and heavily over us, Hugh,—
Who saw it coming, and had just then cast
His peregrine hawk at a heron quarry,—
In his saddle rising, so, as it passed,
By the jesses caught, and to her did carry,
Where she stood near the wood. Her face flushed rose
With the glad of the meeting. No two foes
Her eyes and my Lord's, I swear, who saw
'Twas love from the start. And I heard him speak
Some words; then he knelt; and the sombre shaw,
With the rust of the autumn waste and bleak,
Grew spring with her smile, as the hawk she took
On her lily wrist, where it pruned and shook
Its ragged wings. Then I saw him seize
The hand, that she reached to him, long and white,
As she smilingly bade him rise from his knees—
When he kissed its fingers, her eyes grew bright.
But her cheeks grew pallid when, lashing through
The woodland there, with a face a-flare
With the sting of the wind, and his gipsy hair
Flying, the falconer came, and two
Or three of the people of Castle Clare.
And the leaves of the autumn made a frame
For the picture there in the morning's flame.
What was said in that moment, I do not know,
That moment of meeting, between those lovers;
But whatever it was, 't was whispered low,
And soft as a leaf that swings and hovers,
A twinkling gold, when the leaves are yellow.
And her face with the joy was still aglow,
When down through the wood that burly fellow
Came with his frown, and made a pause
In the pulse of their words. My lord, Sir Hugh,
Stood with the soil on his knee. No cause
Had he, but his hanger he partly drew,
Then clapped it sharp in its sheath again,
And bowed to my Lady, and strode away;
And mounting his horse, with a swinging rein
Rode with a song in his heart all day.
He loved and was loved, I knew; for, look!
All other sports for the chase he forsook.
And strange that he never went to hawk,
Or hunt, but Clara would meet him there
In the Strongbow forest! I know the rock,
With its fern-filled moss, by the bramble lair,
Were oft and again he met—by chance,
Shall I say?—the daughter of Clare; as fair
Of face as a queen in an old romance,
Who waits with her sweet face pale; her hair
Night-deep; and eyes dove-gray with dreams;—
By the fountain-side where the statue gleams
And the moonbeam lolls in the lily white,—
For the knightly lover who comes at night.
Heigho! they ceased, those meetings; I wot,
Betrayed to the Baron by some of his crew
Of menials who followed and saw and knew.
For she loved too well to have once forgot
The time and the place of their trysting true.
"Why and when?" would ask Sir Hugh
In the labored letters he used to lock—
The lovers' post—in a coigne of that rock.
She used to answer, but now did not.
But nearing Yule, love got them again
A twilight tryst—through frowardness sure!—
They met. And that day was gray with rain,
Or snow: and the wind did ever endure
A long bleak moaning thorough the wood,
That chapped i' the cheek and smarted the blood;
And a brook in the forest went throb and throb,
And over it all was the wild-beast sob
Of the rushing boughs like a thing pursued.
And then it was that he learned how she,
(God's blood! how it makes my old limbs quiver
To think what a miserable tyrant he—
The Baron Richard—aye and ever
To his daughter was!) forsooth! must wed
With an eastern earl, a Lovell: to whom
(Would God o' his mercy had struck him dead!)
Clara of Clare when only a child,—
With a face like a flower, that blooms in the wild
Of the hills, and a soul like its soft perfume,—
Was given; to seal, or strengthen, some ties
Of power and wealth—say bartered, then,
Like the merest chattel. With tearful eyes
And trembling lips she spoke; and when
Her lover, the Clifford, had learned and heard,—
He'd have had her flee with him then, 'sdeath!
In spite of them all! Let her speak the word,
They would fly together; the Baron's men
Might follow, and if ... and he touched his sword,
It should answer! But she, while she seemed to stay,
With a hand on her bosom, her heart's quick breath,
Replied to his heat, "They would take and slay
Thee who art life of me!—No! not thus
Shall we fly! there's another way for us;
A way that is sure; an only way;
I have thought it out this many a day."—
The words that she spoke, how well I remember!
As well as the mood o' that day of December,
That bullied and blustered and seemed in league,
Like a spiteful shrew, with the wind and snow,
To drown the words of their sweet intrigue,
With the boom of the boughs tossed to and fro.
Her last words these, "By curfew sure,
On Christmas eve, at the postern door."
And we were there; with a led horse too;
Armed for a journey I hardly knew
Whither, but why, you well can guess.
For often he whispered a certain name,
The talisman of his happiness,
That warmed his blood like a yule-log's flame.
While we waited there, till its owner came,
We saw how the castle's baronial girth,
Like a giant's, loosed for reveling more,
Shone; and we heard the wassail and mirth
Where the mistletoe hung in the hearth's red roar,
And the holly brightened the weaponed wall
Of ancient oak in the banqueting hall.
And the spits, I trow, by the scullions turned
O'er the snoring logs, rich steamed and burned,
While the whole wild-boar and the deer were roasted,
And the half of an ox and the roe-buck haunches;
While tuns of ale, that the cellars boasted,
And casks of sack, were broached for paunches
Of vassals who reveled in stable and hall.
The song of the minstrel; the yeomen's quarrel
O'er the dice and the drink; and the huntsman's bawl
In the baying kennels, its hounds a-snarl
O'er the bones of the banquet; now loud, now low,
We could hear where we crouched in the drifting snow.
Was she long? did she come?... By the postern we
Like shadows waited. My lord, Sir Hugh,
Spoke, pointing a tower, "That casement, see?
When a stealthy light in its slit burns blue
And signals thrice slowly, thus—'t is she."
And close to his breast his gaberdine drew,
For the wind it whipped and the snow beat through.
Did she come?—We had waited an hour or twain,
When the taper flashed in the central pane,
And flourished three times and vanished so.
And under the arch of the postern's portal,
Holding the horses, we stood in the snow,
Stiff with the cold. Ah, me! immortal
Minutes we waited, breath-bated, and listened
Shivering there in the hiss of the gale:
The parapets whistled, the angles glistened,
And the night around seemed one black wail
Of death, whose ominous presence over
The stormy battlements seemed to hover.
Said my lord, Sir Hugh,—to himself he spoke,—
"She feels for the spring in the sliding panel
'Neath the arras, hid in the carven oak.
It opens. The stair, like a well's dark channel,
Yawns; and the draught makes her taper slope.
Wrapped deep in her mantle she stoops, now puts
One foot on the stair; now a listening pause
As nearer and nearer the mad search draws
Of the thwarted castle. No smallest hope
That they find her now that the panel shuts!...
If the wind, that howls like a tortured thing,
Would throttle itself with itself, then I
Might hear how her hurrying footsteps ring
Down the hollow ... there! 't is her fingers try
The postern's bolts that the rust makes cling."—
But ever some whim of the storm that shook
A clanging ring or a creaking hook
In buttress or wall. And we waited, numb
With the cold, till dawn—but she did not come.
I must tell you why and have done: 'T is said,
On the brink of the marriage she fled the side
Of the guests and the bridegroom there; she fled
With a mischievous laugh,—"I'll hide! I'll hide!
Seek! and be sure that you find!"—so led
A long search after her; but defied
All search for—a score and ten long years....
Well, the laughter of Yule was turned to tears
For them and for us. We saw the glare
Of torches that hurried from chamber to stair;
And we heard the castle re-echo her name,
But neither to them nor to us she came.
And that was the last of Clara of Clare.
That winter it was, a month thereafter,
That the home of the Cliffords, roof and rafter,
Burned.—I could swear 't was the Strongbow's doing,
Were I sure that he knew of the Clifford's wooing
His daughter; and so, by the Rood and Cross!
Had burned Hugh's home to avenge his loss.—
So over the channel to France with his King,
The Black Prince, sailed to the wars—to deaden
The ache of the mystery—Hugh that spring,
And fell at Poitiers; for his loss made leaden
His heart; and his life was a weary sadness,
So he flung it away in a moment's madness.
And the Baron died. And the bridegroom?—well,
Unlucky was he in truth!—to tell
Of him there is nothing. The Baron died,
The last of the Strongbows he—gramercy!
And the Clare estate with its wealth and pride
Devolved to the Bloets, Walter and Percy.
And years went by. And it happened that they
Ransacked the old castle; and so, one day,
In a lonesome tower uprummaged a chest,
From Flanders; of ebon, and wildly carved
All over with things: a sinister crest,
And evil faces, distorted and starved;
Fast-locked with a spring, which they forced and, lo!
When they opened it—Death, like a lady dressed,
Grinned up at their terror!—but no, not so!
A skeleton, jeweled and laced, and wreathed
With flowers of dust; and a miniver
Around it clasped, that the ruin sheathed
Of a once rich raiment of silk and fur.
I'd have given my life to hear him tell,
The courtly Clifford, how this befell!
He'd have known how it was: For, you see, in groping
For the secret spring of that panel, hoping
And fearing as nearer and nearer drew
The search of retainers, why, out she blew
The tell-tale taper; and, seeing this chest,
Would hide her a minute in it, mayhap,
Till the hurry had passed; but the death-lock, pressed
By the lid's great weight, closed fast with a snap,
Ere her heart was aware of the fiendish trap.
The Water Witch
See! the milk-white doe is wounded.
He will follow as it bounds
Through the woods. His horn has sounded.
Echoing, for his men and hounds.
But no answering bugle blew.
He has lost his retinue
For the shapely deer that bounded
Past him when his bow he drew.
Not one hound or huntsman follows.
Through the underbrush and moss
Goes the slot; and in the hollows
Of the hills, that he must cross,
He has lost it. He must fare
Over rocks where she-wolves lair;
Wood-pools where the wild-boar wallows;
So he leaves his good steed there.
Through his mind then flashed an olden
Legend told him by the monks:—
Of a girl, whose hair is golden,
Haunting fountains and the trunks
Of the woodland; who, they say,
Is a white doe all the day;
But when woods are night-enfolden
Turns into an evil fay.
Then the story oft his teacher
Told him; of a mountain lake
Demons dwell in; vague of feature,
Human-like, but each a snake,
She is queen of.—Did he hear
Laughter at his startled ear?
Or a bird? And now, what creature
Is it, or the wind, stirs near?
Fever of the hunt. This water,
Murmuring here, will cool his head.
Through the forest, fierce as slaughter,
Slants the sunset; ruby red
Are the drops that slip between
His cupped hands, while on the green,—
Like the couch of some wild daughter
Of the forest,—he doth lean.
But the runnel, bubbling, dripping,
Seems to bid him to be gone;
As with crystal words, and tripping
Steps of sparkle luring on.
Now a spirit in the rocks
Calls him; now a face that mocks,
From behind some bowlder slipping,
Laughs at him with lilied locks.
So he follows through the flowers,
Blue and gold, that blossom there;
Thridding twilight-haunted bowers
Where each ripple seems the bare
Beauty of white limbs that gleam
Rosy through the running stream;
Or bright-shaken hair, that showers
Starlight in the sunset's beam.
Till, far in the forest, sleeping
Like a luminous darkness, lay
A deep water, wherein, leaping,
Fell the Fountain of the Fay,
With a singing, sighing sound,
As of spirit things around,
Musically laughing, weeping
In the air and underground.
Not a ripple o'er it merried:
Like the round moon 'neath a cloud,
In its rocks the lake lay buried:
And strange creatures seemed to crowd
Its dark depths; vague limbs and eyes
To the surface seemed to rise
Spawn-like and, as formless, ferried
Through the water, shadow-wise.
Foliage things with human faces,
Demon-dreadful, pale and wild
As the forms the lightning traces
On the clouds the storm has piled,
Seeming now to draw to land,
Now away—Then up the strand
Comes a woman; and she places
On his arm a spray-white hand.
Ah! an untold world of sorrow
Were her eyes; her hair, a place
Whence the moon its gold might borrow;
And a dream of ice her face:
'Round her hair and throat in rims
Pearls of foam hung; and through whims
Of her robe, as breaks the morrow,
Shone the rose-light of her limbs.
Who could help but look with gladness
On such beauty? though within,
Deep within the beryl sadness
Of those eyes, the serpent sin
Coil?—When she hath placed her cheek
Chilly upon his, and weak,
With love longing and its madness,
Is his will grown, then she'll speak:
"Dost thou love me?"—"If surrender
Is to love thee, then I love."—
"Hast no fear then?"—"In the splendor
Of thy gaze who knows thereof?
Yet I fear—I fear to lose
Thee, thy love!"—"And thou dost choose
Aye to be my heart's defender?"—
"Take me. I am thine to use."
"Follow then. Ah, love, no lowly
Home I give thee."—With fixed eyes,
To the water's edge she slowly
Drew him.... And he did surmise
'Twas her lips on his, until
O'er his face the foam closed chill,
Whisp'ring, and the lake unholy
Rippled, rippled and was still.