Chapter II: Evening

O sunset, from the springs of stars,
Draw down thy cataracts of gold;
And belt their streams with burning bars,
Of ruby on which flame is rolled:
Drench dingles with laburnum light;
Drown every copse in violet blaze:
Rain rose-light down; and, poppy-bright,
Die downward o'er the hills of haze,
And bring at last the stars of night!

The stars and moon! that silver world,
That, like a spirit, faces west,
Her foam-white feet with light empearled,
Bearing white flame within her breast:
Earth's sister sphere of fire and snow,
Who shows to Earth her heart's pale heat,
And bids her see its pulses glow,
And hear their crystal currents beat
With beauty, lighting all below.

O cricket, with thy elfin pipe,
That tinkles in the grass and grain;
And dove-pale buds, that, dropping, stripe
The glen's blue night, and smell of rain;
O nightingale, that so dost wail
On yonder branch of blossoming snow,
Thrill, fill the wild hart-haunted dale,
Where Oriana, walking slow,
Approaches thro' the moonlight pale.

She comes to meet me! Earth and air
Grow radiant with another light.
In her dark eyes and her dark hair
Are all the stars and all the night.
She comes! I clasp her! and it is
As if no grief had ever been.
The world takes fire from our kiss.--
There are no other women or men
But Oriana and Amadis!

URGANDA

It is Sir Elid of the Sword,
Of whom his wife, Helis, hath heard
For three long years no wished-for word.

His armor dofft, he comes in fur
And velvet, all the warrior,
And takes her hand and kisses her.

"Thrice have I seen the summer die;
And thrice the autumn, fading, lie:
And heard the weary winter sigh,

"Since last, my lord, my own true heart,
From me, thy wife, with love, didst part,
And rode to war with Lisuarte:"--

So said Helis with many tears:--
"Still welcome, Elid! though long years
Of silence, what with doubts and fears,

"Have made me deem that thou wast dead.--
Why dost thou stare so overhead?--
What is it that thy soul doth dread?"

He said to her: "My own, my best,
To thee alone ... _Witch! wilt thou wrest
This hour from me?_ ... shall be confessed
The thing that will not let me rest.

"It was at Hallowmas I spurred
Through woods wherein no wild thing stirred,
No sound of brook, no song of bird.

"When softly down a tangled way
A dim fair woman, white as day,
Rode on a palfrey misty gray.

"Upon her brow a circlet burned
Of jewels, and the fire, inurned
Within them, changed, and turned and turned.

"I stared like one, who, wild and pale,
Spurs, hag-led, through the night and hail:
When, lo! adown a forest vale
An angel with the Holy Grail.

"It vanishes; but, once beheld,
The longing heart is never quelled,
Its loveliness hath so enspelled.--

"She vanished. And I rode alone,
Save for a voice that did intone,
'Urganda is she, the Unknown.

"'And never shalt thou clasp the form
Of her who leads thee by a charm
To follow her through sun and storm.'

"I can not stay for weal or woe.
E'en now her magic bids me go,
Soft-summoning through wind and snow."

* * * * *

Helis with some old song beguiles
His hollow face until it smiles;
And with her lute shapes sweeter wiles:

Till kingly figures, woven in
The shadowy arras, seem to win
Strange, ghostly life, and slay and sin.

Until her deep hair's golden glow
Sweeps his dark curls as, praying low,
She kneels, a marble-sculptured woe.

And then she left him there to rest,
Aweary with his haggard quest,
All in gray fur and velvet dressed....

At midnight through the vaulted roof
She heard armed steps of ringing proof:
She heard a charger's iron hoof.

The leaded lattice glowed, a square
Of moonlight in the moonlit air:
She flung it wide: what saw she there?

Sir Elid in the moonlight's beam,
Stark, staring as if still a-dream
Rode downward towards the rushing stream.

His helm and corselet had he on,
And, in one gauntlet, silver-wan,
His bugle-horn was upward drawn.

Upon his horn he blew his best;
Then sang, it seemed, his merriest,
"I ride upon my love's last quest:
And on her breast at last shall rest."

Straight onward by some mighty will,
Into the stream below the hill
She saw him ride. Then all was still....

Not wider than her eyes are his
That stare, where icy eddies kiss
His lips. "Urganda's work is this!"

She cries, and where her warrior lies
With horror in his face and eyes,
She bends above his form and sighs.

And then she seems to hear a moan
Beside her;--but she leans alone:--
Then laughter; and a cloud seems blown
Before her eyes, that doth intone:

"Beware, Helis! beware! beware
My curse! my kiss, that is despair!
Kiss not his brow, lest unaware,
Helis, Helis, my curse be there!"

HAWKING

I

I see them still, when poring o'er
Old volumes of romantic lore,
Ride forth to hawk, in days of yore,
By woods and promontories:
Knights in gold-lace, plumes and gems,
Damsels crowned with anadems,--
Whose falcons perch on wrists, like milk,
In hoods and jesses of green silk,--
From bannered Miraflores.

II

The laughing earth is young with dew;
The deeps above are violet blue;
And in the East a cloud or two
Empearled with airy glories;
And with merriment and singing,
Silver bells of falcons ringing,
Beauty, rosy with the dawn,
Lightly rides o'er hill and lawn
From towered Miraflores.

III

The torrent glitters from the crags;
Down forest vistas browse the stags;
And from wet beds of reeds and flags
The frightened lapwing hurries:
And the brawny wild-boar peereth
At the cavalcade that neareth;
Oft his shaggy-throated grunt
Brings the king and court to hunt
At royal Miraflores.

IV

The May itself, in soft sea-green,
Is Oriana, Spring's high queen,
And Amadis beside her seen,
Some prince of Fairy stories:
Where her castle's ivied towers
Drowse above her woods and bowers,
Flaps the heron through the sky,
And the wild-swan gives a cry
By knightly Miraflores.

ORLANDO

SUGGESTED BY ARIOSTO'S "ORLANDO FURIOSO"

I

When southern winds sowed woods and skies,
Angelica!
With bloom-storms of the flowering May;
When hill and battle-field were gay
With peace and purity of flowers,
I sat to dream
Beside a stream amid the bowers,
Clear as the deeps of thy blue eyes:
And near the stream
I saw a grotto banked with flowers,
From which the streamlet fell in showers,
Cool-sparkling through the sunlit bowers,
Angelica!

II

My casque I dofft to scoop the fount,
Angelica!
With liquid pureness bubbling cool
It rose--then clashed into the pool ...
Thy name I saw, hewn in the rock!
And under it ...
Ah no! I dreamed! my eyes did mock
My senses!... Then I seemed to count,
All fire-lit,
The letters! deep, carved in the rock!
_Medoro_ carved in every rock!--
My brain went round like some wild clock,
Angelica!