Chapter VI

I went far and cold
Over upland wold
Where the story of spring's breathing
Scarcely yet was told.
Shifting monotone
Of the pale wind's moan
Through my hair at dusk went wreathing,
And I walked alone.

Far below and far
Where the homesteads are
One small ruddy candle twinkled,
Warmer than a star.
When the day was gone,
Softly one by one
Homing-lights the valley sprinkled ...
And I wandered on.

KING LAURIN'S GARDEN

(_A Styrian Peasant-Girl Dreams at her Wheel_)

King Laurin has a garden of roses
Where warm sweet odours do idly flow
Wave upon wave through the charmèd air ...
It is sin to wish for the garden of roses
In the heart of wild mountains where no men go.

Laurin is king of a rosy garden.
The lure of the roses is rare, O rare!
They tremble and brighten and throb and glow ...
I may not think of King Laurin's garden.
A danger, they tell me, for maids is there.

There are four high gates to the garden of roses,
For the treasure of bloom a golden guard,
A precious cup for the rose-wine red.
O the golden gates of the garden of roses!
They are bright and beautiful, tall and barred.

There is no strong wall round the rosy garden;
From gate to gate runs a woven thread,
Yellow and silken and fine, for ward.
Who snaps the ward of the rosy garden
With his hand and his foot shall he pay, 'tis said.

Laurin who rules the garden of roses
Is an elf-king, therefore he has no soul.
(_The good priest shudders at Laurin's name._)
Poor soulless elf of the garden of roses!
Shall I pray for King Laurin at Vesper-toll?

They say no prayers in the rosy garden
Where life is the flash of a fragrant flame
Like the heart of a flower on fire: the whole
Of forbidden sweet is the rosy garden
I may not think of and feel no shame.

For in King Laurin's garden of roses
Waking thought shall be stilled asleep,
And the still heart dream itself half-awake ...
O the soft, soft dreams of the garden of roses!
They creep ... (_I look not_) ... but they steal and creep.

Laurin the king of the rosy garden
Has a magic girdle that none can break.
It makes the pulse of his life to leap
With twelve men's strength. In the rosy garden
He is feared and feared for the girdle's sake.

Laurin the king of the garden of roses
Has a magic crown where strange birds so sing
That resistance and doubt by their song once kissed
Melt into trance. In the garden of roses
He is loved and loved for his crowned bird-ring.

Laurin the king of the rosy garden
Has a magic cloak the colour of mist,
And he goes invisibly wandering
Far from the bourne of the rosy garden
Like a cloud of pearl and of amethyst.

He seeks a bride for his garden of roses,
For the soulless spirit a human girl ...
(_The priest bids me wear my cross and pray_) ...
He will bear her back to his garden of roses
In the mist of his magic grey-and-pearl.

Kunhild was borne to the rosy garden,
The sister of Dietrich of Bern, one day.
A fair green mead and a cloud's dim swirl,
And Kunhild awoke in the rosy garden ...
But she stood by a linden-tree first, they say.

* * * * *

_King Laurin has a garden of roses
Full of warm odours_ ... I'll sit and spin
As my Mother bids me ... _O wine-red glow
Of half-waked dreams in the garden of roses_ ...
Spin, wheel!... _fine thread, bright like silk, and thin_.

_A grey mist steals from the rosy garden
In the heart of wild mountains where no men go_ ...
To think of the garden they say is sin—
I'll dream no more of King Laurin's garden ...
_See! in our meadow green lindens grow_....

THE MYSTERIOUS FOREST

I stood on the verge of the mysterious forest,
Sunlight lay behind me on the meadows,
But all the world of the mysterious forest
Was a world of wraiths and shadows.

The dim trees beckoned, beckoned with their branches,
I said: "The sun's behind me on the meadows."
A dim voice calling, calling through the branches
From the world of wraiths and shadows.

I saw a pale young Queen, her eyes were mournful,
Steal ghostwise ... is the sun yet on the meadows?...
More phantoms passed and all their eyes were mournful
In the world of wraiths and shadows.

I see a blue light in the mysterious forest,
The cold night lies behind me on the meadows.
The branches beckon in the mysterious forest ...
They beckon, beckon, beckon, call and beckon
From the world of wraiths and shadows.

THE OLD GREY QUEEN

The Princess looked from the old grey tower;
She was a-weary of being there.
She wore no crown but her own gold hair,
And the old grey Queen had shut her there,
She was so like a flower.

"The young King's-Son comes over the sea
From the West," said the Queen who was grey and old.
"In an unlit hall were not grey as gold?
In an unlit hall what are young and old?
We'll greet i' the dark," said she.

The Princess looked from the old grey tower ...
Lo! a milk-white sail on the sunlit ocean.
Fluttered her heart to its fluttering motion,
And the King's-Son looked from the golden ocean ...
She was so like a flower.

"Why do the grey seas break and boom?
And why is the starless dusk so grey?
And why does the young King's-Son delay?
Shall I," said the Queen who was old and grey,
"Sit all night i' the gloom?"

The grey seas broke on an empty tower
Like pain that knocks on an empty breast.
Lo! a milk-white sail that flew the crest
Of Love and of Youth met breast to breast
Melted away in the golden West....

The old grey Queen beat her empty breast:
"She was so like a flower."

THE QUEST

A Knight rides forth upon a Quest,
And his young Squire follows after;
The Knight's eyes dwell on a star's white crest,
And the Squire's eyes dwell on laughter.

"What of the Quest that claims our swords?"
The young Squire asks his master.
The Knight says, "'Tis too high for words,"
And they speed their horses faster.

A beggar hails them: "Alms! alms, Sir Knight,
Or loose my life with your dagger!"
The Knight sees only a star's white light,
And the Squire's purse pays the beggar.

A sturdy robber the highroad bars:
"Sir Knight, our debts we'll settle!"
The Knight hears only the song of stars,
And the Squire's blade wins the battle.

A lady looks from a castle wall:
"Sir Knight, in pity stay thee!
Untrammel me who lie here in thrall,
And I in love will pay thee."

The Knight is set on a goal heaven-high
Where a silver star is risen,
And the young Squire it is springs by
To free the maid from prison.

"Take, good Sir Knight, my pleasure and pride,
The meed of valiant striving!
Here wait the lips of your glad bride
Whose name is Joy-of-Living."

Starward, starward the rapt Knight goes,
The star's true image missing.
The lady laughs like a lovely rose
And the Squire's lips do the kissing.

"What, boy, are you my love doth woo?
What's he that would not woo it?"
"He's John-a-Dreams-o'-Dering-do,
And I'm Dick-up-an'-Do-it."

THE UNSPOKEN WORD

THE MAN'S SIDE

Two years I have lived in a dream
And have dared not to end it—
Owned wealth in a measure supreme
And been fearful to spend it.

You, woman of beauty and love
In such noble wise fashioned,
Are my dreams and my rich treasure-trove.
I am shamed that, impassioned,

In secret I levy demands
Upon more than you've given—
Crave yourself, heart and soul, eyes and hands,
Which in sum make up heaven.

Unconscious of aught, through these days
You have let me be near you,
Knowing not how your thousand sweet ways
Only serve to endear you

To all in your orbit who move,
In such innocence wronging
As friendship what really is love
And unsatisfied longing.

Yet, your friendship—to be just your friend—
So caps love in another,
That I would my love, burned to its end,
In its own smoke might smother,

Lest I in an outbreak one day
Ask of friendship aught stronger—
When you may forbid me to say
Even "friend" any longer.

So I come in the old way and go,
While my heart's quickened beatings
Are hidden, and you never know
What I glean from our meetings;

How a word, a look even, which seems
So unconsciously meted,
Builds new dreams on the wreckage of dreams
That were never completed.

You once dropped a flower—did not see
That I hid in my bosom
What was more than Golconda to me,
And to you a bruised blossom.

Ten seconds I once held your hand
While you pulled from the river
A lily. Could you understand
Why my own hand should quiver?

Small matters these things you account
Who so lightly diffuse them,
But to all my life's joy they amount—
And my fear is, to lose them.

One day, when your eyes are still kind
And your voice is still tender,
I shall slip the control of my mind,
All my future surrender,

Obeying the primal desire
To fall down and adore you,
And outpour in one instant of fire
All the love I have for you.

'Twill be death, and far worse, at your feet
When my lips cease to blunder
And I look up your dear eyes to meet
Overrunning with wonder.

Thereafter—what? Nothing, I fear—
Even dreams will have vanished
When I by my act from your sphere
Shall for ever be banished.

Dear, that is the moment I dread—
When you hear my confession,
When the word I withhold has been said
And my love finds expression;

But till then (and God knows how I seek
To postpone and postpone it),
Till my love grows too strong, lips too weak
To much longer disown it,

I shall come, if I may, day by day,
My small gleanings to gather,
While you think of me—how shall we say?
As a brother or father;

And you never will guess, till you learn
From a heart brimming over,
That I've met you at every turn
As a passionate lover.

THE WOMAN'S SIDE

How long will you hold back, belov'd? How long
Leave the supreme, the final word unspoken?
The barrier of silence hold unbroken?
Men—you, too, being a man—have called you strong,
A doer of big deeds, great acts. But they are wrong.

You lack in courage. I, being woman, know
How often woman shapes man's enterprises,
Cloaking her work in manifold disguises
Lest he should chafe too large a debt to owe—
Strikes every blow up to the very hundredth blow

That shall at last resolve, achieve, complete
The foregone nine-and-ninety. This, grown wiser,
She leaves with him for fear he should despise her.
_He_ wins the credit for the final feat—
Thought of _his_ triumph, not hers, made all her toiling sweet.

Belov'd, how long before you understand?
Why, I have known two years you were my lover,
That all my being to yours was given over!
The thing your heart most yearns for lies at hand
Awaiting only this, that you shall make demand.

Have I not worked for all betwixt us two
Since first I saw your love spring into being,
And you became too faint of heart for seeing
That the one peach you longed to garner grew,
Ripened, and mellowed here only for you, for you?

You would have drawn abashed from out my life
Had I permitted; it became _my_ mission
To bring the golden moment to fruition
Through, ah, how many hours of wistful strife
With you, who guessed not, even, the tender struggle rife

Between us. When I met you with a smile,
"Love's not for me," you thought, "yet while she kindly
Still looks and speaks, I'll stay." And went thus blindly
Taking for innocence what sprang from guile
That I might hold you by me just a little while.

The day I dropped a flower upon the path,
Did you not know it was the thing I aimed for
When you behind me loitered (somewhat lamed for
A good excuse), secured it free from scath
And hid it close, to reap therefrom love's aftermath

In hours when I was absent? Why, I _meant_,
Belov'd, that you should have this one flower-treasure
(Stolen, you thought!) out of my heart's full measure—
Meant that your solitary nights be spent
Cheek to its petals pressed where all my love lay pent.

And then, the day you helped me from the boat,
"It is but chance," you thought, "I hold her fingers
In mine past custom's limit, while she lingers
To cull the waterlily there afloat."
It was not chance, belov'd. And still you would not note.

I have done all a woman may do, dear,
With eyes and hands and tones of voice have spoken,
In all but words have given you the token
And seal of love. What is it then you fear?
Can you not take one step, the goal being now so near?

Just the last word to utter, just the last
Step to be taken—it is very little!
Can you believe Love's structure is so brittle?
All I have builded in these two years past
Fall tottering at one word? It is of stronger cast.

You would not have me speak. That part is yours.
My share is finished and I wait for you now.
The time to act has come—what will you do now?
Dear, even I'd say the word that all ensures
But that were more than love itself of love endures.

I had to spend my strength when you were weak,
Be guide along the road from its beginning
To the last barrier. Am I worth the winning?
But _you_ must turn the key. It will not creak.
Beloved, I am waiting still ... will you not speak?

IN THE OCULIST'S ANTEROOM

I

Not to be able to see!...
Almost as well not be.
And that man in there in his single hand
Holds all God's light,
Or just so much, you understand,
As may be drunk in by another's sight—
Dear God, will he give the light to me?

Or will a fathomless night
Drop its veil across the sight
Of my straining eyes, to become mere husks
Whence the kernel slips,
Knowing none of God's dawns and only God's dusks ...
That man has them all at his finger-tips.
Dear God! will he clear the dusk from the light?