Chapter VII

And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
Hell blot black for alway the thought “Peace!”

BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE[9]

SIMON ZELOTES SPEAKETH IT SOMEWHILE AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION

Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O’ ships and the open sea.

When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
“First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
“Why took ye not me when I walked about
Alone in the town?” says he.

Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere,
But a man o’ men was he.

I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men
Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.

They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book, I think,
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere,
But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
“I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Though I go to the gallows tree.”

“Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead,” says he,
“Ye shall see one thing to master all:
’Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”

A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue
But never a cry cried he.

I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o’ Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea.

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi’ twey words spoke’ suddently.

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.

I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb
Sin’ they nailed him to the tree.

[9] Fere = Mate, Companion.

PORTRAIT

From “La Mère Inconnue.”

Now would I weave her portrait out of all dim splendour.
Of Provence and far halls of memory,
Lo, there come echoes, faint diversity
Of blended bells at even’s end, or
As the distant seas should send her
The tribute of their trembling, ceaselessly
Resonant. Out of all dreams that be,
Say, shall I bid the deepest dreams attend her?

Nay! For I have seen the purplest shadows stand
Alway with reverent chere that looked on her,
Silence himself is grown her worshipper
And ever doth attend her in that land
Wherein she reigneth, wherefore let there stir
Naught but the softest voices, praising her.

THE EYES

Rest, Master, for we be a-weary, weary,
And would feel the fingers of the wind
Upon these lids that lie over us
Sodden and lead-heavy.

Rest, brother, for lo! the dawn is without!
The yellow flame paleth
And the wax runs low.

Free us, for without be goodly colours,
Green of the wood-moss and flower-colours,
And coolness beneath the trees.

Free us, for we perish
In this ever-flowing monotony
Of ugly print marks, black
Upon white parchment.

Free us, for there is one
Whose smile more availeth
Than all the age-old knowledge of thy books:
And we would look thereon.

NILS LYKKE

“Beautiful, infinite memories
That are a-plucking at my heart,
Why will you be ever calling and a-calling,
And a-murmuring in the dark there?
And a-reaching out your long hands
Between me and my beloved?

“And why will you be ever a-casting
The black shadow of your beauty
On the white face of my beloved
And a-glinting in the pools of her eyes?”

“FAIR HELENA” BY RACKHAM

“_What I love best in all the world?_”

When the purple twilight is unbound,
To watch her slow, tall grace
and its wistful loveliness,
And to know her face
is in the shadow there,
Just by two stars beneath that cloud—
The soft, dim cloud of her hair,
And to think my voice
can reach to her
As but the rumour of some tree-bound stream,
Heard just beyond the forest’s edge,
Until she all forgets I am,
And knows of me
Naught but my dream’s felicity.

GREEK EPIGRAM

Day and night are never weary,
Nor yet is God of creating
For day and night their torch-bearers,
The aube and the crepuscule.

So, when I weary of praising the dawn and the sunset,
Let me be no more counted among the immortals;
But number me amid the wearying ones,
Let me be a man as the herd,
And as the slave that is given in barter.

HISTRION

No man hath dared to write this thing as yet,
And yet I know, how that the souls of all men great
At times pass through us,
And we are melted into them, and are not
Save reflexions of their souls.
Thus am I Dante for a space and am
One François Villon, ballad-lord and thief
Or am such holy ones I may not write,
Lest blasphemy be writ against my name;
This for an instant and the flame is gone.

’Tis as in midmost us there glows a sphere
Translucent, molten gold, that is the “I”
And into this some form projects itself:
Christus, or John, or eke the Florentine;
And as the clear space is not if a form’s
Imposed thereon,
So cease we from all being for the time,
And these, the Masters of the Soul, live on.

PARACELSUS IN EXCELSIS

“Being no longer human, why should I
Pretend humanity or don the frail attire?
Men have I known and men, but never one
Was grown so free an essence, or become
So simply element as what I am.
The mist goes from the mirror and I see!
Behold! the world of forms is swept beneath—
Turmoil grown visible beneath our peace,
And we that are grown formless rise above,
Fluids intangible that have been men,
We seem as statues round whose high risen base
Some overflowing river is run mad;
In us alone the element of calm!

A SONG OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER

_In “Los Pastores de Belen.”_

From the Spanish of Lope de Vega.

As ye go through these palm-trees,
O holy angels;
Sith sleepeth my child here
Still ye the branches.

O Bethlehem palm-trees
That move to the anger
Of winds in their fury,
Tempestuous voices,
Make ye no clamour,
Run ye less swiftly,
Sith sleepeth the child here
Still ye your branches.

He the divine child
Is here a-wearied
Of weeping the earth-pain,
Here for his rest would he
Cease from his mourning,
Only a little while,
Sith sleepeth this child here
Stay ye the branches.

Cold be the fierce winds,
Treacherous round him.
Ye see that I have not
Wherewith to guard him,
O angels, divine ones
That pass us a-flying,
Sith sleepeth my child here
Stay ye the branches.

_Ya veis que no tengo_
_Con que guardarlo,_
_O angeles santos_
_Que vais volando_
_Por que duerme mi niño_
_Tened los ramos!_

SONG

Love thou thy dream
All base love scorning,
Love thou the wind
And here take warning
That dreams alone can truly be,
For ’tis in dream I come to thee.

PLANH FOR THE YOUNG ENGLISH KING

THAT IS, PRINCE HENRY PLANTAGENET, ELDER BROTHER TO RICHARD “CŒUR DE LION”

From the Provençal of Bertrans de Born, “_Si tuit li dol elh plor elh marrimen_.”

If all the grief and woe and bitterness,
All dolour, ill and every evil chance
That ever came upon this grieving world
Were set together, they would seem but light
Against the death of the young English King.
Worth lieth riven and Youth dolorous,
The world o’ershadowed, soiled and overcast,
Void of all joy and full of ire and sadness.

Grieving and sad and full of bitterness
Are left in teen the liegemen courteous,
The joglars supple and the troubadours.
O’er much hath ta’en Sir Death, that deadly warrior,
In taking from them the young English King,
Who made the freest hand seem covetous.
’Las! Never was nor will be in this world
The balance for this loss in ire and sadness!

O skilful Death and full of bitterness,
Well mayst thou boast that thou the best chevalier
That any folk e’er had, hast from us taken;
Sith nothing is that unto worth pertaineth
But had its life in the young English King,
And better were it, should God grant his pleasure
That he should live than many a living dastard
That doth but wound the good with ire and sadness.

From this faint world, now full of bitterness
Love takes his way and holds his joy deceitful,
Sith no thing is but turneth unto anguish
And each to-day ’vails less than yestere’en,
Let each man visage this young English King
That was most valiant mid all worthiest men!
Gone is his body fine and amorous,
Whence have we grief, discord and deepest sadness.

Him, whom it pleased for our great bitterness
To come to earth to draw us from misventure,
Who drank of death for our salvacioun,
Him do we pray as to a Lord most righteous
And humble eke, that the young English King
He please to pardon, as true pardon is,
And bid go in with honourèd companions
There where there is no grief, nor shall be sadness.

ALBA INNOMINATA

From the Provençal.

In a garden where the whitethorn spreads her leaves
My lady hath her love lain close beside her,
Till the warder cries the dawn—Ah dawn that grieves!
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

“Please God that night, dear night, should never cease,
Nor that my love should parted be from me,
Nor watch cry ‘Dawn’—Ah dawn that slayeth peace!
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

“Fair friend and sweet, thy lips! Our lips again
Lo, in the meadow there the birds give song!
Ours be the love and Jealousy’s the pain!
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

“Sweet friend and fair, take we our joy again
Down in the garden, where the birds are loud,
Till the warder’s reed astrain
Cry God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

“Of that sweet wind that comes from Far-Away
Have I drunk deep of my Belovèd’s breath,
Yea! of my Love’s that is so dear and gay.
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!”

_Envoi_

Fair is this damsel and right courteous,
And many watch her beauty’s gracious ways.
Her heart toward love is no wise traitorous.
Ah God! Ah God! That dawn should come so soon!

LAUDANTES

I

When your beauty is grown old in all men’s songs,
And my poor words are lost amid that throng,
Then you will know the truth of my poor words,
And mayhap dreaming of the wistful throng
That hopeless sigh your praises in their songs,
You will think kindly then of these mad words.

II

I am torn, torn with thy beauty,
O Rose of the sharpest thorn!
O Rose of the crimson beauty,
Why hast thou awakened the sleeper?
Why hast thou awakened the heart within me,
O Rose of the crimson thorn?

III

The unappeasable loveliness is calling to me out of the wind,
And because your name is written upon the ivory doors,
The wave in my heart is as a green wave, unconfined,
Tossing the white foam toward you;
And the lotus that pours
Her fragrance into the purple cup
Is more to be gained with the foam
Than are you with these words of mine.

IV

_He speaks to the moonlight concerning the Belovèd._

Pale hair that the moon has shaken
Down over the dark breast of the sea,
O magic her beauty has shaken
About the heart of me;
Out of you have I woven a dream
That shall walk in the lonely vale
Betwixt the high hill and the low hill,
Until the pale stream
Of the souls of men quench and grow still.

V

_Voices speaking to the sun._

Red leaf that art blown upward and out and over
The green sheaf of the world,
And through the dim forest and under
The shadowed arches and the aisles,
We, who are older than thou art,
Met and remembered when his eyes beheld her
In the garden of the peach-trees,
In the day of the blossoming.

VI

I stood on the hill of Yrma when the winds were a-hurrying,
With the grasses a-bending I followed them,
Through the brown grasses of Ahva unto the green of Asedon.

I have rested with the voices in the gardens of Ahthor,
I have lain beneath the peach-trees in the hour of the purple:

Because I had awaited in the garden of the peach-trees,
Because I had feared not in the forest of my mind,
Mine eyes beheld the vision of the blossom
There in the peach-gardens past Asedon.

O winds of Yrma, let her again come unto me,
Whose hair ye held unbound in the gardens of Ahthor!

VII

Because of the beautiful white shoulders and the rounded breasts
I can in no wise forget my beloved of the peach-trees,
And the little winds that speak when the dawn is unfurled
And the rose-colour in the grey oak-leaf’s fold

When it first comes, and the glamour that rests
On the little streams in the evening; all of these
Call me to her, and all the loveliness in the world
Binds me to my beloved with strong chains of gold.

VIII

If the rose-petals which have fallen upon my eyes
And if the perfect faces which I see at times
When my eyes are closed—
Faces fragile, pale, yet flushed a little, like petals of roses:
If these things have confused my memories of her
So that I could not draw her face
Even if I had skill and the colours,
Yet because her face is so like these things
They but draw me nearer unto her in my thought
And thoughts of her come upon my mind gently,
As dew upon the petals of roses.