Chapter XV

Without, the stony courts rang with the feet
Of steel-shod men, and horses’ clanging shoe.
And yellow torches flashed their brilliance through
Dim corridor, and winding way remote.
High in the belfry rang a faint peal sweet,
As silver bells spelt out a marriage note.
The red cross blazed on breast and banner white.
Shouted the warder at the castle moat--
“To arms! The king rides to the wars to-night!”

LAURENS VILLA

“There is no happiness!” I cried.
“Hush, hush!” she laughed, lying by my side.
“I think I am too blest! The gods
Will smite me with their jealous rods
Upon thy breast!”... “Sweetheart,” (she said,)
“Art not content?” I hid my head
In silence: whilst she laughed; all slow
Saying,--“Oh, Love, since thou _must_ know!
When Laurens died, thy sword that let
His life out, with his red blood wet
Let in the light to me!”... I turned
And kissed her, till the fires burned
In flame to Eros. And she slept
Until the hushed white morning crept
And with unprisoned sunlight came
To wake with matin sword of flame.

Half sleeping, I essayed to find
Her lips: and with warm hands to bind
Her fast with her bright hair; then watch
The mellowing of the eaves and thatch
Under the morning.... She was cold.
I clasped within my trembling hold
Beauty’s bright lamp extinguishèd!
Her lily limbs and flower head
Were as the unsunned dawn is cold,
And white as was the pleated heavy fold
Of her close-clinging linen gown.
Her eyelids safely folded down
Over the azure shining thro’
That mocked the heavenly sky, with blue!
The fine red lip-line parted, showing
Her small white teeth; and golden, glowing
The splendid masses of her hair
Wantoned their glory everywhere!
Smiling she lay, her arms thrown wide
As she would clasp on every side
Happiness...! This when morning came
To wake us with its sword of flame!

God knoweth how I listened, close
To her lips’ lovely parting rose,
Lest one fine breath should stir ... and bid
The uplifting of a heavy lid,
Or wake again that silent heart
Whence fell the linen folds apart ...
Under the pulseless hills of snow
Where strayed the blue veins to and fro
No breath should ever stir again!
And then my grief broke forth like rain.
Rang through the tomb-like house and shook
The white doves in their rose-vine nook.
None else to pain or grieve was there
In the still villa anywhere.
I lay until the dying day
Pale as my cheeks, and cold and grey,
Stole mourning o’er the horizon.
And then, I feared to stay alone
With Germaine, who lay there and smiled
So still and gladly as a child
In first sleep, whilst my tears had made
Rivers upon her breast and head
And she cared nothing! So I took
My cloak and garment, from the hook
Where hung her clothes. I wept, again
Touching and kissing them. “Germaine!”
I cried, and summoned thus the dead.
I took the linen off the bed
And laid one line of winding shroud
Over my love: and weeping loud
I looked where she lay smiling, glad,
From head to feet, twilight yclad,
Then I crept out--a grey old man.

* * * * *

They hold me under curse and ban,
I “killed this woman as she lay
In my embrace!” This thing they say!
But Germaine, could she speak, would still
Their lisping lies...!
“If love can kill”
(Germaine would tell them) “why then he
Killed me, forsooth, with loving me....”

Little it matters! I shall sleep
In sleep like hers; but not so deep,
_For love was earth’s last gift to her_!
The little cotton dress she wore
With ribbons, hangs against the door ...
In the white villa, ... still it is!...
Only the doves were witnesses.

THE HOST

I had my enemy within my house.
My enemy--my arch, arch enemy.
I bound my handkerchief about his brows,
For he was wan and cried--“A Boon!” to me.

Standing upon the threshold--wan, distraught,
His eyes filmed with the mist of sickness dim;
“He does not know it is my house!” (I thought)
“_Salve!_” I cried, and ran to welcome him.

He could not see nor hear; I spread my bed,
Thereon I made him lie all weakly down.
Blood ran into his eyes, from his rent head
Cut deep between the eyebrow and the crown.

Quickly I ministered what grace I could:
Washed out the wound and bound it up with care;
Smoothing his kerchief as his mother would;
Laying my fingers gently through his hair.

From out my store I fetched a brimming cup
Of fragrant wine, and held it to his lip,
Lifting all tenderly his hurt head up.
Lest he should know me,--let the curtain slip

Between our faces. Long he drank, and deep,
And muttered thanks to God, and stretched out wide
His great form on my bed, thus fell asleep
Safe as the child his mother guards beside.

And there, within my walls, he lay at last,
My enemy--my arch, arch enemy!
I let my crimson passion loose, and cast
Curses for all the wrongs he’d done to me.

Crouching low at the bedfoot, still, oh, still
As Fate relentless, long I watched him lie
Curtained within the shadows red, until
He seemed to lie there murdered bloodily.

Like deadly grave-robed figures, one by one,
A cold procession passed before my gaze,
The high bold-handed evils he had done
To me, to mine, the ruin of our days.

I felt my hand close on my unsheathed sword--
“The prayers of all your yesterdays” (I cried)
“Must gain you pardon of the gracious Lord!”
And he, unshriven, by my hot hate had died--

Had I not heard wild cries without my door,
The acclamations of the multitude.
My enemy stirred not in his stupor
I drew the bedshades close, and waiting stood.

Then they were all about me in the place,
Strange, furious faces, peering everywhere
Seeking the hated stranger, whose foul trace
Had left their village desolate as here.

“Show us Pasquale, show the devil hound,”
And twenty eyes flashed sharper than the blade.
They shrieked his name until I thought no swound
Was proof against the riot that they made.

I saw the naked unsheathed swords, I saw
(My enemy--my arch, arch enemy!)
Minions of justice, armed with hate and Law
And my guest was asleep.... “Myself am he”

(I said before the swords their home could find).
“Draw me without,” I prayed, “I would not fall
Here where my children sleep.” And they were kind
And dragged me far without my own portal.

Ere they could send my soul to hell unshriven
Pasquale’s men came riding bright as day
More time new sins to make, to cry to heaven,
They bought Pasquale ... I write as I lay.

They say I shall not see another dawn
But I have had the sacred Eucharist
And write this for true knights to dream upon.

_That day of his sore need, with broken brows
And sightless eyes blinded with bloody mist
Helpless, whilst his pursuers hounded on
I had my enemy within my house._

THE PAGAN

I

Oh the dream,
Warm, wild, beautiful,--born of midsummer.
No, it was April gave it; no, it was May!
It was the whole round year,
Days, months, filled with it,
Hours Eden inspired.
Moments astral born,
Life
Fused, swathed, held in its mystery,
Perfect content in the present,
Ecstasy at the thought of a future.
Oh the dream....
Hush, I will sing of it....

II

I was a child, knee-deep in the rugged daisies;
Small head level with bright bold heads tossed free.
Brown eyes following farm and meadow mazes:
Little heart one with nature, flower, and tree;
Friend with the birds.... Then childhood passed, on a sudden as pure dawn’s haze is
Kissed to glorious morning, and all eyes see,
Standing young as the June, little heart’s pulse set free
Throbbed to the song that the soul of the whole world’s lays is:--
A child in the home-land meadows,
Belovèd, I dreamed of thee.

III

Once I walked in the heather,
Cliffs sheer downward touched the breast of the sea.
Meadows ’round me stretched and kissed together,
Met in oceans of gold grain feather
Mad with poppies, red as blood may be.
Summer’s glory to glory ran;--nor sense knew whether
It were godliest born, the blue of the sea
Or the whispering ocean of fields, as shoreless!
Then the tether
Of time slipped loose, and Future showed to me,
Cliff-high,--sea-girt,--there in the Norman weather
All of my youth Belovèd,
I dreamed of thee.