Chapter X

In at the workshop windows
Peacefully stole the dawn;
Tinting the marble figures
Of wood-nymph, goddess and faun,
Broadening in a streamer
Which touched with a rosy glow
The still white form of the statue,
The sleeper kneeling below.
... She moved as the red light touched her
And life stirred under her hair,
A little shiver ran over
Her glorious limbs all bare.
Thro' arms and breasts and thighs
The warm blood pulsed and ran:
And she stepped down from the pedestal--
A woman unto a man;
Saying in tender accents
Of low and musical tone:
"Oh! sleeper, wake from thy slumber
No longer art thou alone...."

Alexis.

Who slew Alexis? Some one smote
Right thro' the white and tender throat
(And scarce gave time for fear)
The jewelled doll, who sprang from kings,
With farded cheek and flashing rings,
And left him lying here.

He sat upon a throne, pardye,
The ancient throne of Muscovy,
Smiling a harlot's smile,
And gave--the painted popinjay--
The word which no man might gainsay,
Tossing his curls the while.

And savage warriors, steel on hips,
Muttered between their bearded lips,
And spat upon the floor,
To see a thing so debonnaire
Enthroned upon a conqueror's chair,
And find their King half-whore.

Or in a gallery all aflare,
Approached by some dark palace stair,
He lay in languid mood,
And naked women, mad with wine,
Did cruelty and lust combine
To stir his tainted blood.

So plunged, half woman and half devil,
In many a foul and roaring revel,
By some fierce craving fanned,
Alexis, with the girlish face
And swaying movements full of grace,
The Ruler of this Land.

So, hunted by a mind diseased,
By those fierce orgies unappeased,
He thirsted after new;
And monstrous things he did (they say)
Which never saw the light of day,
Shared by a chosen few.

The rocks were cleft to bring him treasure,
The mothers mourned to give him pleasure,
The whole land writhed in pain,
All night the secret chambers flared,
All night the horrid deeds were dared
Which made him thirst again.

And pampered Turks lived by his side,
With gobbling negroes bloodshot-eyed,
And hags with mouths impure.
And day and night the warders tall
Stood watching on his castle wall
That he might dwell secure.

Strange visions did upon him throng
With shapes confused which held him long,
A riot in his brain.
Unbridled lust, unbounded power
So worked upon him in that hour....
I think he was insane.

And I--who had no God to please,
And nursed him crowing on my knees--
I waited by the stair,
And as he gave a joyous note,
Passed this bright iron thro' his throat
And left him lying there.

The King's Cloak.

There was a King in Norroway
Who loved a famous sport,
He followed it in the sun and snow
With the nobles of his Court.
In all his kingdom mountainous
Was none so swift as he
(For so they said who ate his bread)
At running on the ski.

His black heart swelled with pride
As the acorn swells with the tree,
And from all his kingdom mountainous
He called the men of the ski.
From fir-pricked crag and gloomy gorge
Where the lonely log-huts cling,
And till the King's word bade them cease
They raced before the King.

So raced they down a spear-broad track,
Where never tree did grow,
Between the mountains and the sea
A thousand feet below
Till sundip in a cold pearl sky
And a west of ageless pink
From a withered pine to the King enthroned
With his nobles by the brink.

There ran one with the racers
Straight-fashioned as a sword,
With sail-brown cheek and eyes as deep
As water in a fiord
And till the King's word bade them cease
None passed or touched him near,
He leapt as frightened chamois leap
And ran like a stricken deer.

Dusk threw a hateful shadow
On the King's countenance
"The guerdons of thy skill," cried he,
"Or, boy, thy luck, perchance?
This figured ivory drinking horn!
This turquoise-hilted sword!
But ... shall I see no marvel
Ere day dips in the fiord?"

"There is not in fair Norroway
My master on the ski
One bolder or more skilful....
A marvel wouldst thou see?"
--Bold and high was the answer--
"'Twas skill not luck, Oh! King,
I am the swiftest.... A marvel
Of whom the scalds shall sing."

"Oh! yonder stand the mountains
And yonder moans the sea
And he who leapt from the topmost crag....
A bold man would he be.
A bold man ... yea, a marvel
For the grey-haired scalds to hymn...."
Day dying touched his swarthy cheek
With a lurid light and grim,

While he made the gloomy challenge
And round a murmur ran,
But ... the boy bowed low and answered,
"Oh! King, behold the man
The swiftest and the boldest
In thy kingdom by the sea,
From mountain or ... from hatred
What man can do, dares he."

... He swept down from the mountain
Like an eaglet on a hare
With bent back and swinging arms
And tossing golden hair....
The King stood by the precipice
(A small sea moaned and broke)
... Looked down over the wrinkled sea
And swiftly loosed his cloak.

... He came as an arrow is loosened....
As a slinger slings a stone,
Clutched (as the sun shot downwards)
At one on the brink alone....
The King leapt back ... the King laughed out....
The great cloak floated free....
There came no sound--tho' he listened long--
From the darkened moaning sea.

The Knight and the Witch.

A voice cried over the Hills
"Follow the strange desire.
Oh! follow, follow, follow,
The world is on fire.
Day burns on funeral bed
In flame of sky and sea,
And, black against that red,
Is the tower where dwelleth she
And gazeth, white foot pressed
On bruised heaps of bloom,
O'er the sea which cannot rest
And sounds thro' her room.
Murmurs in her room
Thro' a casement open wide
The sea which is a tomb
For mariners of pride.
Oh! follow, follow, follow,
Come quickly unto her,
Her body is more sweet
Than cassia or myrrh,
She is whiter than the moon,
She is stranger than death,
Stronger than the new moon
Which the waters draweth.
More lovely are her words
More lovely is she
Than the flight of white birds
O'er a halcyon sea.
She took the stars for toys--
Her magic was so strong--
Murmurs of earth and the noise
Of green seas for a song.
She leant down on the sill
And called across the sea.
... Oh! follow, follow, follow,
Come quickly unto me...."
A voice cried over the Hills
"Oh! come, I fail, I swoon,
Pale with my love's excess,
Paler than our pale moon.
Oh! come, Oh! come, Oh! come,
Before the days eclipse
We'll meet with brimming eyes
And kiss with quivering lips.
Love-drunken, breast to breast,
With half-closed eyes we'll kiss,
And reel from bliss to pain
From pain again to bliss.
The sea which cannot rest
From its undernote of doom
(We swooning breast on breast)
Shall murmur thro' my room.
Shall murmur all night long
Thro' a casement open wide.
The sea, which is a tomb
For mariners of pride,
With an undernote of doom
Shall murmur evermore
That love is in the room
And Death is at the door,
That Death will bruise to dust
Our flower-drenched passion soon
Darker than darkest night
Colder than our cold moon.
So shall it ebb and flow
Our love like those sea-tides
For a space ... a little space--
What matter? ... nought abides."

A voice cried over the Hills,
"What matter? ... all things die,
Our quivering love's excess,
Our rose-drenched ecstasy
As glimmering waters drawn
By the magic of the moon,
As the moon itself at dawn
Our love shall vanish soon.
So swift (my love-pale groom)
A white bird wings its flight.
Then find you Death's cold room,
Darker than darkest night;
Then find you that dark door
(And find it all men must)
And love there nevermore
But crumble back to dust,
And kiss there nevermore
In flower-drenched ecstasy;
Too late then to implore,
Too cold to hear a cry."

And then towards the shelving beach
A cedar shallop drew,
With silver prow shaped like a swan
And sails of rainbow hue.
Swiftly it came with a wake of foam
And lying on its side
Like an arrow's flight towards the Knight,
Tho' none sat there to guide.
And in the shallows by the shore
It came to rest at last,
The cordage slacked and the rainbow sail
Flapped idly on the mast.
And the Swan-prow with the ruby eyes
Opened his silver beak,
And with a musical, magic voice
He thus began to speak.
"Step in, step in, my gallant lad,
Your youth shall be my fare.
For you my mistress opes her door
And combs her wine-dark hair.
She swelled my sail with an eager wind
And drove me to this beach,
She gave strange sight to my ruby eyes
And filled my beak with speech.

"She saw you in the magic glass
The hour that she has might,
As you rode across the purple heath,
Honour and armour bright.
Step in, step in, my lover bold
And come to the West with me
Where the young nymphs play in the wave and lift
Their white arms from the sea;
And the Tritons chase the laughing rout
And swim by the vessel's side,
Blowing on horns confusedly,
Or shouting words of pride.
You hear it now, but the time will come
When you shall hear no more
The ceaseless wash of a dreaming sea,
Its ripples on the shore.
Oh! follow, follow the sinking sun
And the great white Evening Star,
A magic wind shall breathe behind
Our sail, and bear us far."

He doffed his red-plumed casque of steel,
All flaxen was his hair,
And he was clad from throat to heel
In the armour princes wear,
From throat to heel in silver mail
Like a shining prince in a fairy-tale.

The witch Hegertha o'er him bent,
(Ah! God, her face was fair)
Her breath blew on him like a scent,
She touched him with her hair.
There was no stronger witch than this,
And she gave the Knight her first kiss.
And he was bound to her sword and hand,
To do whatever she might command.

Then up to her full height she drew,
Down poured her hair like wine,
Her pale, proud face looked sadly through
--A moon in a wood of pine--
She breathed a spell in a low, sweet tone
Which none of woman born could disown.
And he was bound to her side till death
By the spell just uttered above her breath.

She drew his soul forth with her eyes,
As a drinker slakes his drouth,
A little smile played sorrowful, wise,
About her rose-red mouth.
She stooped down and called his soul forth,
And left him naught but his body's earth.
And he was bound to her evermore
By the soul he lost and the word he swore.

For evermore and evermore
In the chamber by the sea,
Till death should break the spell-bound door
And end his slavery;
In the chamber strewn with flowers in bloom
With a heavy scent like death,
Echoing ever the song of doom
Which the sad sea moaned beneath.
For evermore and evermore
Till life ceased in his side,
Bound to the room and the rose-strewn floor
And the strange, unholy bride.

And naught could save him now, when once the spell
Had fallen on him, binding limbs and will,
Where he sat listening to the sad sea swell,
Amid the roses which no time could kill.
Naught could restore lost courage to his eyes,
The Knightly ardour that he used to feel,
Or make his heart the seat of high emprise,
Or nerve his hand to grasp the shining steel.
Whether she kept him fast by her enchantment,
Or drove him forth to roam death-pale and weeping,
Naught could remind him what his life's fair grant meant,
Now that his soul was in Hegertha's keeping.

The Dreamer.

This is the dream of the Dreamer
With the grave thought-sunken eyes,
Which he dreamed between sleeping and waking,
Between the night and the making
Of dawn ... and he dreamed in this wise:

To the gate of the dawn came a chariot
Which four black stallions were drawing,
And a spirit charioteer,
With the burning eyes of a seer,
Held them impatiently pawing.

He mounted the floor of the chariot,
And the Spirit drew together
His reins, his strong grip tight'ning,
And his thong flashed out like a lightning,
And the horses rushed up to aether.

The Dreamer was caught into space
With a pang as of ending or birth,
And lo! clouds builded above him,
And beneath him soundless and moving
The sea of his own little earth.

They clove the walls of the clouds,
And snorted each coal black stallion
Nursed by the Spirit, whose hair
Streamed out like a banner, and bare
In the night was the moon--a medallion

And then an ice-sheathed corpse
With ancient glaciers and snouted
Craters of fires extinct,
Chain on chain of them linked.
And the Lord of the Chariot shouted

And shook out his hissing lash
Over the backs of the four
Till they whirled up faster and faster,
Till the sun became vaster and vaster,
And its flames leapt out with a roar

Of mountains, subsident, resurging,
Innumerable, ceaseless of action,
Years and years into space....
And the Dreamer covered his face,
As he rode, in his stupefaction.

They passed with a dip and a swerve,
As a swallow skims the downs,
Far up into the height,
And the stars looked down from the night
Like the lights of distant towns.

Swift is the lonely thought
Of a sage, a mountain-dweller,
But swifter far was their rush
Thro' the awful cold and the hush
Of the spaces interstellar.

They heard the approaching thunder,
And saw the glare of a comet
Holding its destined way
To an undiscovered day,
And its tresses streamed out from it.

They broke thro' other systems,
By huger alien spheres,
Each in its orbit travelling,
The timeless skeins unravelling
Of a law with no count of years

And came at last to a planet,
Girt in a gleaming ring
Of cloud and vapour and mist,
Which the light of four moons kissed
To a wonderful milk-white thing.

Then the Spirit reined in his stallions,
And pointed in exultation
And turned his orbed eyes,
Which burned with a wild surmise
And a dreadful penetration,

On the Dreamer, who followed, and lo!
The Heavens had changed their stations,
And their voids were with unknown
And greater galaxies sown
And altered constellations.

And, beyond, a scatter of crystals,
And, beyond, bright motes in a beam,
And, beyond, while the Spirit probed him
To the soul in the flesh that robed him,
An uncountable shimmering stream.

He saw these worlds all marshalled,
And their ways all governed for ever;
And he felt the sight of his soul
Shrivel up like a fire-licked scroll
In his insupportable terror.

Then the Spirit pointed again,
And wheeled the might of his horses
And shouted ... and down they fell,
As a pebble drops in a well,
Thro' the worlds and the roar of their courses.

And the Dreamer looked, and behold!
In a point to aeons withdrawn....
A scarce visible speck of light,
His own sun like a mite,
And the blur of his own little dawn.