Page images
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]
[graphic][merged small][merged small]

My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel :

They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies' hands.
How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favors fall!
For them I battle to the end,

To save from shame and thrall:
But all my heart is drawn above,

My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love,

Nor maiden's hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,

Me mightier transports move and thrill; So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer

A virgin heart in work and will.

When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims,
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;

I hear a voice, but none are there:
The stalls are void, the doors are wide,

The tapers burning fair.

Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,
The silver vessels sparkle clean,

The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chants resound between.

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark;

I leap on board: no helmsman steers: I float till all is dark.

A gentle sound, an awful light!

Three angels bear the holy Grail: With folded feet, in stoles of white, On sleeping wings they sail. Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! My spirit beats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory slides, And star-like mingles with the stars.

When on my goodly charger borne
Thro' dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,

And, ringing, spins from brand and mail;
But o'er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.

I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields:
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o'er waste fens and windy fields.

A maiden knight-to me is given
Such hope, I know not fear;

I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven
That often meet me here.

I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace,

Whose odors haunt my dreams:

And, stricken by an angel's hand,
This mortal armor that I wear,
This weight and size, this heart and eyes,
Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air.

The clouds are broken in the sky,
And thro' the mountain-walls
A rolling organ-harmony

Swells up, and shakes and falls.
Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
"O just and faithful knight of God!
Ride on the prize is near."

So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;

By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide, Until I find the holy Grail.

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE.

ILLYRIAN Woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,

The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,

With such a pencil, such a pen, You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there:

And trust me while I turn'd the page,
And track'd you still on classic ground,
I grew in gladness till I found
My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour'd

And glisten'd-here and there alone The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown By fountain-urns;-and Naiads oar'd

A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom

From him that on the mountain lea By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea.

THE LORD OF BURLEIGH.

In her ear he whispers gayly,

"If my heart by signs can tell,
Maiden, I have watch'd thee daily,
And I think thou lov'st me well."
She replies, in accents fainter,

"There is none I love like thee."
He is but a landscape-painter,
And a village maiden she.
He to lips, that fondly falter,

Presses his without reproof:
Leads her to the village altar,
And they leave her father's roof.
"I can make no marriage present;
Little can I give my wife.

Love will make our cottage pleasant,
And I love thee more than life."
They by parks and lodges going
See the lordly castles stand;
Summer woods, about them blowing,
Made a murmur in the land.
From deep thought himself he rouses,
Says to her that loves him well,

"Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell." So she goes by him attended,

Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid

Lay betwixt his home and hers;
Parks with oak and chestnut shady,
Parks and order'd gardens great,
Aucient homes of lord and lady,

Built for pleasure and for state.
All he shows her makes him dearer:
Evermore she seems to gaze

On that cottage growing nearer,

Where they twain will spend their days.

O but she will love him truly!

He shall have a cheerful home;
She will order all things duly,
When beneath his roof they come.
Thus her heart rejoices greatly,
Till a gateway she discerns
With armorial bearings stately,
And beneath the gate she turns;
Sees a mansion more majestic

Than all those she saw before:
Many a gallant gay domestic

Bows before him at the door.
And they speak in gentle murmur,
When they answer to his call,
While he treads with footstep firmer,
Leading on from hall to hall.
And, while now she wonders blindly,
Nor the meaning can divine,
Proudly turns he round and kindly,

"All of this is mine and thine."
Here he lives in state and bounty,
Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,
Not a lord in all the county
Is so great a lord as he.

All at once the color flushes

Her sweet face from brow to chin:
As it were with shame she blushes,
And her spirit changed within.
Then her countenance all over
Pale again as death did prove;
But he clasp'd her like a lover,

And he cheer'd her soul with love.
So she strove against her weakness,
Tho' at times her spirits sank:
Shaped her heart with woman's meekness
To all duties of her rank:
And a gentle consort made he,
And her gentle mind was such
That she grew a noble lady,

And the people loved her much. But a trouble weigh'd upon her,

And perplex'd her, night and morn,
With the burden of an honor

Unto which she was not born.
Faint she grew, and ever fainter,
As she murmur'd, "O, that he
Were once more that landscape-painter,
Which did win my heart from me!"
So she droop'd and droop'd before him,
Fading slowly from his side:
Three fair children first she bore him,
Then before her time she died.
Weeping, weeping late and early,
Walking up and pacing down,
Deeply mourn'd the Lord of Burleigh,
Burleigh-house by Stamford-town.
And he came to look upon her,

And he look'd at her and said,
"Bring the dress and put it on her,
That she wore when she was wed."
Then her people, softly treading,
Bore to earth her body, drest
In the dress that she was wed in,
That her spirit might have rest.

EDWARD GRAY.-SIR LAUNCELOT AND QUEEN GUINEVERE.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring; A gown of grass-green silk she wore, Buckled with golden clasps before; A light-green tuft of plumes she bore Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set;

And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade, The happy winds upon her play'd, Blowing the ringlet from the braid: She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips, A man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips.

A FAREWELL.

FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver:

No more by thee my steps shall be, Forever and forever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, A rivulet then a river:

Nowhere by thee my steps shall be, Forever and forever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
Forever and forever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.

THE VISION OF SIN.

1.

I HAD a vision when the night was late:

A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.

He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,
But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin,
And took him by the curls, and led him in,
Where sat a company with heated eyes,
Expecting when a fountain should arise:
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips-

As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,
Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes-
Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,

By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes.

2.

Then methought I heard a mellow sound, Gathering up from all the lower ground; Narrowing in to where they sat assembled Low voluptuous music winding trembled, Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sigh'd, Panted hand in hand with faces pale,

Swung themselves, and in low tones replied.
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide
Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail;
Then the music touch'd the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seem'd to fail,
Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale;
Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,
As 't were a hundred-throated nightingale,
The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpi
tated;

Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles,
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,

Flung the torrent rainbow round:

Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,

Dash'd together in blinding dew:
Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony,
The nerve-dissolving melody

Flutter'd headlong from the sky.

3.

And then I look'd up toward a mountain-tract,
That girt the region with high cliff and lawn:

I saw that every morning, far withdrawn
Beyond the darkness and the cataract,
God made himself an awful rose of dawn,
Unheeded: and detaching, fold by fold,

From those still heights, and, slowly drawing neaz
A vapor heavy, hueless, formless, cold,
Came floating on for many a month and year,
Unheeded and I thought I would have spoken,
And warned that madman ere it grew too late:
But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken,
When that cold vapor touch'd the palace gate,
And link'd again. I saw within my hend
A gray and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death,
Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath,
And lighted at a ruin'd inn, and said:

4.

"Wrinkled hostler, grim and thin! Here is custom come your way; Take my brute, and lead him in, Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.

"Bitter barmaid, waning fast!

See that sheets are on my bed; What! the flower of life is past: It is long before you wed.

"Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour, At the Dragon on the heath! Let us have a quiet hour,

Let us hob-and-nob with Death.

"I am old, but let me drink; Bring me spices, bring me wine; I remember, when I think,

That my youth was half divine.

"Wine is good for shrivell'd lips, When a blanket wraps the day, When the rotten woodland drips, And the leaf is stamp'd in clay.

"Sit thee down, and have no shame.
Cheek by jowl, and knee by knes:
What care I for any name?
What for order or degree?

« EelmineJätka »