Chapter IV: Act II: Scene, a wood ending in a steep bank over a dry dene,

Winefred having been murdered within. Re-enter Caradoc
with a bloody sword._

C. My heart, where have we been? What have we seen, my
mind?
What stroke has Caradoc's right arm dealt? what done?
Head of a rebel
Struck off it has; written upon lovely limbs,
In bloody letters, lessons of earnest, of revenge;
Monuments of my earnest, records of my revenge,
On one that went against me whéreas I had warned her--
Warned her! well she knew. I warned her of this work.
What work? what harm 's done? There is no harm done,
none yet;
Perhaps we struck no blow, Gwenvrewi lives perhaps;
To makebelieve my mood was--mock. I might think so
But here, here is a workman from his day's task sweats.
Wiped I am sure this was; it seems not well; for still,
Still the scarlet swings and dances on the blade.
So be it. Thou steel, thou butcher,
I cán scour thee, fresh burnish thee, sheathe thee in thy
dark lair; these drops
Never, never, never in their blue banks again.
The woeful, Cradock, the woeful word! Then what,
What have we seen? Her head, sheared from her shoulders,
fall,
And lapped in shining hair, roll to the bank's edge; then
Down the beetling banks, like water in waterfalls,
It stooped and flashed and fell and ran like water away.
Her eyes, oh and her eyes!
In all her beauty, and sunlight to it is a pit, den, darkness,
Foam-falling is not fresh to it, rainbow by it not beaming,
In all her body, I say, no place was like her eyes,
No piece matched those eyes kept most part much cast down
But, being lifted, immortal, of immortal brightness.
Several times I saw them, thrice or four times turning;
Round and round they came and flashed towards heaven:
O there,
There they did appeal. Therefore airy vengeances
Are afoot; heaven-vault fast purpling portends, and what
first lightning
Any instant falls means me. And I do not repent;
I do not and I will not repent, not repent.
The blame bear who aroused me. What I have done violent
I have like a lion done, lionlike done,
Honouring an uncontrolled royal wrathful nature,
Mantling passion in a grandeur, crimson grandeur.
Now be my pride then perfect, all one piece. Henceforth
In a wide world of defiance Caradoc lives alone,
Loyal to his own soul, laying his own law down, no law nor
Lord now curb him for ever. O daring! O deep insight!
What is virtue? Valour; only the heart valiant.
And right? Only resolution; will, his will unwavering
Who, like me, knowing his nature to the heart home,
nature's business,
Despatches with no flinching. But will flesh, O can flesh
Second this fiery strain? Not always; O no no!
We cannot live this life out; sometimes we must weary
And in this darksome world what comfort can I find?
Down this darksome world cómfort whére can I find
When 'ts light I quenched; its rose, time's one rich rose,
my hand,
By her bloom, fast by her fresh, her fleecèd bloom,
Hideous dashed down, leaving earth a winter withering
With no now, no Gwenvrewi. I must miss her most
That might have spared her were it but for passion-sake. Yes,
To hunger and not have, yét hope ón for, to storm and
strive and
Be at every assault fresh foiled, worse flung, deeper dis-
appointed,
The turmoil and the torment, it has, I swear, a sweetness,
Keeps a kind of joy in it, a zest, an edge, an ecstasy,
Next after sweet success. I am not left even this;
I all my being have hacked in half with her neck: one part,
Reason, selfdisposal, choice of better or worse way,
Is corpse now, cannot change; my other self, this soul,
Life's quick, this kínd, this kéen self-feeling,
With dreadful distillation of thoughts sour as blood,
Must all day long taste murder. What do nów then?
Do? Nay,
Deed-bound I am; one deed treads all down here cramps
all doing. What do? Not yield,
Not hope, not pray; despair; ay, that: brazen despair out,
Brave all, and take what comes--as here this rabble is come,
Whose bloods I reck no more of, no more rank with hers
Than sewers with sacred oils. Mankind, that mobs, comes.
Come!

_Enter a crowd, among them Teryth, Gwenlo, Beuno._

. . . . . . . . . . .

_After Winefred's raising from the dead and the breaking
out of the fountain._

BEUNO. O now while skies are blue, now while seas are salt,
While rushy rains shall fall or brooks shall fleet from
fountains,
While sick men shall cast sighs, of sweet health all despairing.
While blind men's eyes shall thirst after daylight, draughts
of daylight,
Or deaf ears shall desire that lipmusic that's lost upon them,
While cripples are, while lepers, dancers in dismal limb-
dance,
Fallers in dreadful frothpits, waterfearers wild,
Stone, palsy, cancer, cough, lung wasting, womb not bearing,
Rupture, running sores, what more? in brief, in burden,
As long as men are mortal and God merciful,
So long to this sweet spot, this leafy lean-over,
This Dry Dene, now no longer dry nor dumb, but moist
and musical
With the uproll and the downcarol of day and night
delivering
Water, which keeps thy name, (for not in róck wrítten,
But in pale water, frail water, wild rash and reeling water,
That will not wear a print, that will not stain a pen,
Thy venerable record, virgin, is recorded).
Here to this holy well shall pilgrimages be,
And not from purple Wales only nor from elmy England,
But from beyond seas, Erin, France and Flanders, every-
where,
Pilgrims, still pilgrims, móre pílgrims, still more poor pilgrims.
. . . . . . . . . . .
What sights shall be when some that swung, wretches, on
crutches
Their crutches shall cast from them, on heels of air departing,
Or they go rich as roseleaves hence that loathsome cáme
hither!
Not now to náme even
Those dearer, more divine boons whose haven the heart is.
. . . . . . . . . . .
As sure as what is most sure, sure as that spring primroses
Shall new-dapple next year, sure as to-morrow morning,
Amongst come-back-again things, thíngs with a revival,
things with a recovery,
Thy name . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

_59_

WHAT shall I do for the land that bred me, Her homes and fields that folded and fed me?-- Be under her banner and live for her honour: Under her banner I'll live for her honour. CHORUS. Under her banner live for her honour.

Not the pleasure, the pay, the plunder, But country and flag, the flag I am under-- There is the shilling that finds me willing To follow a banner and fight for honour. CH. We follow her banner, we fight for her honour.

Call me England's fame's fond lover, Her fame to keep, her fame to recover. Spend me or end me what God shall send me, But under her banner I live for her honour. CH. Under her banner we march for her honour.

Where is the field I must play the man on? O welcome there their steel or cannon. Immortal beauty is death with duty, If under her banner I fall for her honour. CH. Under her banner we fall for her honour.

_60_

THE times are nightfall, look, their light grows less; The times are winter, watch, a world undone: They waste, they wither worse; they as they run Or bring more or more blazon man's distress. And I not help. Nor word now of success: All is from wreck, here, there, to rescue one-- Work which to see scarce so much as begun Makes welcome death, does dear forgetfulness.

Or what is else? There is your world within. There rid the dragons, root out there the sin. Your will is law in that small commonweal . . .

_61 Cheery Beggar_

BEYOND Mágdalen and by the Bridge, on a place called
there the Plain,
In Summer, in a burst of summertime
Following falls and falls of rain,
When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of
Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime;
. . . . . . . .

The motion of that man's heart is fine
Whom want could not make píne, píne
That struggling should not sear him, a gift should cheer
him
Like that poor pocket of pence, poor pence of mine.
. . . . . . . .

_62_

DENIS, whose motionable, alert, most vaulting wit Caps occasion with an intellectual fit. Yet Arthur is a Bowman: his three-heeled timber'll hit The bald and bóld blínking gold when áll's dóne Right rooting in the bare butt's wincing navel in the sight of the sun. . . . . . . . .

_63_

THE furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun Had swarthed about with lion-brown Before the Spring was done.

His locks like all a ravel-rope's-end,
With hempen strands in spray--
Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks--fall'n off their ranks,
Swung down at a disarray.

Or like a juicy and jostling shock
Of bluebells sheaved in May
Or wind-long fleeces on the flock
A day off shearing day.

Then over his turnèd temples--here--
Was a rose, or, failing that,
Rough-Robin or five-lipped campion clear
For a beauty-bow to his hat,
And the sunlight sidled, like dewdrops, like dandled
diamonds
Through the sieve of the straw of the plait.
. . . . . . . .

_64

The Woodlark_

_TEEVO cheetio cheevio chee:_ O where, what can thát be? _Weedio-weedio:_ there again! So tiny a trickle of sóng-strain; And all round not to be found For brier, bough, furrow, or gréen ground Before or behind or far or at hand Either left either right Anywhere in the súnlight. Well, after all! Ah but hark-- 'I am the little woodlark. . . . . . . . To-day the sky is two and two With white strokes and strains of the blue . . . . . . . Round a ring, around a ring And while I sail (must listen) I sing . . . . . . . The skylark is my cousin and he Is known to men more than me . . . . . . . . . . when the cry within Says Go on then I go on Till the longing is less and the good gone

But down drop, if it says Stop, To the all-a-leaf of the tréetop And after that off the bough . . . . . . . I ám so véry, O só very glad That I dó thínk there is not to be had . . . . . . . . . . The blue wheat-acre is underneath And the braided ear breaks out of the sheath, The ear in milk, lush the sash, And crush-silk poppies aflash, The blood-gush blade-gash Flame-rash rudred Bud shelling or broad-shed Tatter-tassel-tangled and dingle-a-dangled Dandy-hung dainty head. . . . . . . . And down ... the furrow dry Sunspurge and oxeye And laced-leaved lovely Foam-tuft fumitory . . . . . . . Through the velvety wind V-winged To the nest's nook I balance and buoy With a sweet joy of a sweet joy, Sweet, of a sweet, of a sweet joy Of a sweet--a sweet--sweet--joy.'

_65 Moonrise_

I AWOKE in the Midsummer not to call night, |in the
white and the walk of the morning:
The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe | of a
finger-nail held to the candle,
Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, | lovely in waning but
lustreless,
Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, | of
dark Maenefa the mountain;
A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, | en-
tangled him, not quit utterly.
This was the prized, the desirable sight, | unsought, pre-
sented so easily,
Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, | eyelid and eyelid of
slumber.

_66_

REPEAT that, repeat, Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delight- fully sweet, With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound Off trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow hollow hollow ground: The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound.

_67 On a piece of music_

How all's to one thing wrought!

_See facsimile, after p. 92_.

(Transcriber's note: The facsimile of the handwritten poem is omitted from this text version. It is freely available online from the Internet Archive.)

_68_

'The child is father to the man.' How can he be? The words are wild. Suck any sense from that who can: 'The child is father to the man.' No; what the poet did write ran, 'The man is father to the child.' 'The child is father to the man!' How _can_ he be? The words are wild.

_69_

THE shepherd's brow fronting forked lightning, owns The horror and the havoc and the glory Of it. Angels fall, they are towers, from heaven--a story Of just, majestical, and giant groans. But man--we, scaffold of score brittle bones; Who breathe, from groundlong babyhood to hoary Age gasp; whose breath is our _memento mori_-- What bass is _our_ viol for tragic tones? He! Hand to mouth he lives, and voids with shame; And, blazoned in however bold the name, Man Jack the man is, just; his mate a hussy. And I that die these deaths, that feed this flame, That ... in smooth spoons spy life's masque mirrored: tame My tempests there, my fire and fever fussy.

_70 To his Watch_

MORTAL my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art? The telling time our task is; time's some part, Not all, but we were framed to fail and die-- One spell and well that one. There, ah thereby Is comfort's carol of all or woe's worst smart.

Field-flown the departed day no morning brings Saying 'This was yours' with her, but new one, worse. And then that last and shortest . . .

_71_

STRIKE, churl; hurl, cheerless wind, then; heltering hail May's beauty massacre and wispèd wild clouds grow Out on the giant air; tell Summer No, Bid joy back, have at the harvest, keep Hope pale.

_72 Epithalamion_

HARK, hearer, hear what I do; lend a thought now, make believe We are leafwhelmed somewhere with the hood Of some branchy bunchy bushybowered wood, Southern dene or Lancashire clough or Devon cleave, That leans along the loins of hills, where a candycoloured, where a gluegold-brown Marbled river, boisterously beautiful, between Roots and rocks is danced and dandled, all in froth and water- blowballs, down. We are there, when we hear a shout That the hanging honeysuck, the dogeared hazels in the cover Makes dither, makes hover And the riot of a rout Of, it must be, boys from the town Bathing: it is summer's sovereign good.

By there comes a listless stranger: beckoned by the noise He drops towards the river: unseen Sees the bevy of them, how the boys With dare and with downdolphinry and bellbright bodies hud- dling out, Are earthworld, airworld, waterworld thorough hurled, all by turn and turn about.

This garland of their gambols flashes in his breast Into such a sudden zest Of summertime joys That he hies to a pool neighbouring; sees it is the best There; sweetest, freshest, shadowiest; Fairyland; silk-beech, scrolled ash, packed sycamore, wild wychelm, hornbeam fretty overstood By. Rafts and rafts of flake-leaves light, dealt so, painted on the air, Hang as still as hawk or hawkmoth, as the stars or as the angels there, Like the thing that never knew the earth, never off roots Rose. Here he feasts: lovely all is! No more: off with-- down he dings His bleachèd both and woolwoven wear: Careless these in coloured wisp All lie tumbled-to; then with loop-locks Forward falling, forehead frowning, lips crisp Over finger-teasing task, his twiny boots Fast he opens, last he offwrings Till walk the world he can with bare his feet And come where lies a coffer, burly all of blocks Built of chancequarrièd, selfquainèd rocks And the water warbles over into, filleted with glassy grassy quicksilvery shivès and shoots And with heavenfallen freshness down from moorland still brims, Dark or daylight on and on. Here he will then, here he will the fleet Flinty kindcold element let break across his limbs Long. Where we leave him, froliclavish while he looks about him, laughs, swims.

Enough now; since the sacred matter that I mean I should be wronging longer leaving it to float Upon this only gambolling and echoing-of-earth note-- What is ... the delightful dene? Wedlock. What the water? Spousal love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Father, mother, brothers, sisters, friends Into fairy trees, wild flowers, wood ferns Rankèd round the bower . . . . . . . . . .

EDITOR'S NOTES