Chapter III

He had no hope to win her hand,
A harper in a tyrant's land,
And so he sang of war--
"Oh, fling thy harp away!" she said.
"O war, thy singers are not dead!--
Seat thee beside me; now I see
Thou art for battle, and must be
Brave as thy song.--Well hast thou pled.
My warrior!"

THE ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER

The times they had kissed and parted
That night were over a score;
Each time that the cavalier started,
Each time she would swear him o'er:--

"Thou art going to Barcelona!--
To make Naxera thy bride!
Seduce the Lady Iona!--
And thy lips have lied! have lied!

"I love thee! I love thee, thou knowest!
And thou shalt not give away
The love to my life thou owest;
And my heart commands thee stay!

"I say thou hast lied and liest!--
For--where is there war in the State?--
Thou goest, by Heaven the highest!
To choose thee a fairer mate.

"Wilt thou go to Barcelona
When thy queen in Toledo is?--
To wait on the haughty Iona,
When thou hast these lips to kiss?"

And they stood in the balcony over
The old Toledo square;
And, weeping, she took for her lover
A red rose out of her hair.

And they kissed farewell; and, higher,
The moon made amber the air;--
And she drew, for the traitor and liar,
A stiletto out of her hair....

When the night-watch lounged through the quiet
With the stir of halberds and swords,
Not a bravo was there to defy it,
Not a gallant to brave with words.

One man, at the corner's turning,
Quite dead, in a moonlight band--
In his heart a dagger burning,
And a red rose crushed in his hand.

ISHMAEL

Ishmael, the Sultan, in the Ramadan,
Amid his guards, bristling with yataghan,
And kris,--his amins, viziers wisdom-gray,
Pachas and Marabouts, betook his way
Through Mekinez. For he had read the word
That in the Koran says, "Slay! praying the Lord!
Pray! slaying the victims!" so the Sultan went
Straight to the mosque, his mind on battle bent.
In white burnoose and sea-green caftan clad
He entered ere the last muezzin had
Summoned the faithful unto prayer and let
The "Allah Akbar" from the minaret
Invite to worship. 'Neath the lamps' lit gold
The many knelt and prayed.

Upon the old
Mosaics of the mosque--whose high vault steamed
With aloes' incense--lean ecstatics dreamed
Of Allah and his Prophet, and how great
Is God, and how unstable man's estate.
Conviction on him in this chanting low
Of Koran texts, the Caliph's passion so
Exalted soared--lamped by religious awe--
Himseemed he heard God's everlasting law
'Gainst unbelievers; and himself confessed
The Faith's anointed sword; and, so impressed,
Arose and spoke. The arabesques above--
The marvellous work of oriental love--
Seemed, with new splendors of Heaven's blue and gold,
Applauding all. And, ere the gates were rolled,
Ogival, back to let the many forth,
War was declared on all the Christian Earth.

* * * * *

Now had his army passed the closed bazaar,
Thro' narrow streets gorged with the streams of war:
Had passed the place of tombs and reached the wall
Of Mekinez, above which,--over all
Its merloned battlements,--in long array,
Seraglios and towers, his palace gray
Could still be seen when, girt with pomp and state,
The Sultan passed the city's scolloped gate.

Two dozing beggars, each one's face a sore,
Sprawl'd in the sun the city's gate before;
A leprous cripple and a thief, whose eyes--
Burnt out with burning iron--as supplies
The law for thieves--were wounds, fly-swarmed and raw,--
Lifted shrill voices as they heard or saw;
Praised God, and bowed into the dust each face,
With words of "victory and Allah's grace
Attend our Caliph, Mouley-Ishmael!
Even at the cost of ours his day be well!"

And grimly smiling as he grimly passed,
"While Allah's glory is and still shall last--
Now by Es Sirat!--will a leper's word
And thief's avail to help us?--By my sword!--
Yea, let us see. Whatever their intent
Even as 'tis offered let their necks be bent!
'Though words be pious, evil at the soul
The prayer is naught!--So let their prayer be whole.
Better than gold is death, meseems, for these:
So by the hands of you, my Soudanese,
They die," he said; and even as he said
Rolled in the dust each writhing, withered head.

And frowning westward, as the day grew late,
Two bleeding heads stared from the city gate
'Neath this inscription for the passer-by,
"There is no virtue but in God most high."

IN MYTHIC SEAS

Beneath great saffron stars and skies, dark-blue,
Among the Cyclades, a happy two,
We sailed; and from the Siren-haunted shore,
All mystic in its mist, the soft wind bore
The Siren's song; where, on the ghostly steeps,
Strange foliage grew, deeps folding upon deeps,
That hung and beamed with blossom and with bud,
Blue-petaled, pallid, or, like urns of blood,
Dripping; or blowing from wide mouths of blooms
On our hot brows cool gales of dim perfumes.
While from the yellow stars, that splashed the skies,
O'er our light shallop brooded mysteries
Of calm and sleep, until the yellower moon
Rose, full of fire, above a dark lagoon;
And, as she rose, the nightingales, on sprays
Of heavy, Persian roses, burst in praise
Of her wild loveliness; their boisterous pain
Heard through the pillars of a ruined fane.
And round our lazy keel, that dipped to swing,
The spirits of the foam came whispering;
And from gray Neptune's coral-columned caves
The wet Oceänids rose through the waves;
With naked limbs we saw them breast the spray,
Their pearl-white bodies tempesting the way;
Their sea-green hair, tossed streaming to the breeze,
Scattering with brightness all the tumbled seas.
'Mid columned aisles, seen vaguely through the trees,
We watched the Satyrs chase the Dryades;
Heard Pan's shrill trebles and the Triton's horn
Sound from the flying foam when ruddy Morn,
With dewy eyelids, opened azure eyes,
And, blushing, rose, and left her couch of skies.
We saw the Naiad, clothed with veiling mist,
Half hidden in a bay of amethyst,
With shell-like breasts, and at her hollow ear
A shell's pink labyrinth held up to hear
Circean echoes of the Siren's strains
Imprisoned in its chords of vermeil veins:
Then, stealing wily from a grove of pines,
The Oread, in cincture of green vines;
Her cautious feet, fragrant and twinkling wet,
Set in a bed of rainy serpolet;
Her flower-red lips half-parted in surprise,
And expectation in her wondering eyes,
As in the bosk a rustling noise she hears--
A Faun, sly-eyed, with furred and pointed ears,
Who leaps upon her, as upon a dove
A great hawk pinions from the skies above.
Diana sees, and on her wooded hills
Stays her fair band, the stag-hounds' clamor stills--
A senseless statue of cold, weeping stone
Fills his embrace; the Oread is gone.
The stag-hounds bay; again they urge the chase,
While the astonished Faun's bewildered face
Paints all his wonderment, and, wondering,
He bends above the sculpture of a spring.

And so we sailed; and many a morn of balm
Led on the hours of sunny song and calm:
And it was life, to her and me, and love,
With the fair myths below, our God above,
To sail in golden sunsets and emerge
In golden morns upon a fretless surge.
But, ah! alas! the stars, that pierce the blue,
Shine not for ever; clouds must gather, too.

I knew not how it came, but in a while
I found myself cast on a desert isle,
Alone with sorrow; wan with doubt and dread;
The seas in wrath and thunder overhead;
Deep down in coral caves the one I love--
No myths below; no God, it seemed, above.

LOKÉ AND SIGYN

A daughter of Winter, Skade, a giantess,
One twisting serpent hung above his head,
So that its blistering venom, roping down,
Beat on his upturned face and tortured him.

Him had the gods of Asgard, Odin and Thor,
Weary of all his wiles and evil ways,
Followed, and after many stormy moons,
Within the land of giants overcome,
In Jotunheim, and dragged beneath the world,
Into a cave the earthquake's hands had built,
A cavern vast and terrible as that,
They tell of Hel's, whose ceiling is of snakes,
That hang, a torrent torture, yawning slime,
In whose slow stream eternal anguish wades.
And for his crimes they chained him to a rock,
His lips still sneering and his eyes all scorn,
And left him with the serpent over him,
And, gathering round him from their larvæ lairs,
Monsters, huge-warted, eyed with wells of fire.
But Sigyn, Loké's wife, stole in to him,
And sate herself beside his writhen limbs,
And held a cup of gold against the mouth
Of ceaseless poison dripping in the gloom.
Was it her voice lamenting? or the sound
Of far abysmal waters falling, falling
Down tortured labyrinths of hollow rock?
Or was't the Strömkarl? he whose hoary harp
Is heard remote; who, syllabling strange runes,
Sits gray behind the crashing cataract,
Within a grotto dim with mist and foam;
His long thin beard, white as the flying spray,
Slow-swinging in the wind and keeping time
To his wild harp's notes, murmuring, whispering
Beneath the talons of his hands of foam.

Was it the voice of Sigyn? whose sad sound
Soft from the deathless hush detached itself,
As some pale star from darkness that reveals
The heavens in its fall; or but the deeps
Of silence speaking to the deeps of night?
Sad, sad, and slow, yea slower than sad tears
That fall from blinded eyes, her sad words fell:--
"O Love! O Loké! turn on me thine eyes!
Thy motionless eyes that woe has changed to stone;
That slumber will not seal nor any dream.
Yea, I will woo her down; woo Slumber down,
From her fair far-off skies, with some old song,
The croonéd syllables of some refrain,
Sung unto childhood by the mothers of men.
Or shall I soothe thine eyes shut with my hair,
The fluttered amber of deep curls, until
They shall forget their stone stolidity,
And sleep creep in between the linéd lids
And summon memory and pain away?

"Pale, pale thy face, that seems to stain the night
With pallor; hueless as the brows of death.
So pale, that knew we Death, as mortals know,
I'd say that he, mysterious, had laid hands
Of talons on thee and had left thee so.
So still! and all the night is in my heart.
So tired! and sleep is not for thee or me,
Never again for our o'erweary limbs!
Around, the shadows crouch; vague, obscene shapes,
In horrible attitudes; and all the night,
Above, below, seems so much choking fog,
That clogs my tongue, or with devouring maw
Swallows my words and makes them sound far off,
Remote, deep down, emboweled of the Earth.
And then again it hounds them from my tongue
To sound as wildly clamorous as the hills
Sound when Earth shakes with armies; men that meet
With Berserk fury, shouting, and the hurl
And shock of iron spears on iron shields,
And all the world is one wild wave of helms,
And all the air is one wild wind of swords,
On which the wild Valkyries ride and scream.
Dread cliffs, dread chasms of rocks howl back my words
While yet they touch the tongue to grasp the thought;
And all the vermin, huddled in their holes,
Creep forth to glare and hiss them back again.

"How long! how long ago since we beheld
The rose of morning and the lily of noon,
The great red rhododendron of the eve!
How long! how long ago since we beheld
Those thoughts of God, the stars, that set their flowers
Imperishably in the fields of heaven,
And the still changing yet unchanging moon!
So long, that I unto myself seem grown,
As thou, long since, to rock; in sympathy
With all the rock above us and around.
My countenance hath won, long since, with thee,
The reflex of an alabaster black
That builds vast walls around us, and whose frown
Makes stone thy brow as mine. O woe! O woe!
And now that Idun's apples are denied,
Are not for lips of thee nor lips of me,--
The apples of gold that still keep young the gods,--
The years shall cleave this beautiful brow of thine
With myriad wrinkles; and, in time, this hair,
Brown, brown, and softer than the fur of seals,
Shall lose its lustre and instead shall lie,
A drift of winter in a winter cave,
A feeble gray seen in the glimmering gloom.
But I shall age, too, even as thou dost age.
Yet, yet we can not die; the immortal gods
Can never die! what punishment to know!
What pain to know we age yet can not die!
Death will not come except with Ragnarok.--
That thought be near! take comfort from the word,
The dark word Ragnarok, which is thyself;
Thy vast revenge; thy monster synonym;
Thy banquet of destruction. Thou, whom fate,
The Norns, reserve to war and waste the worlds
Of gods and men, with thy two henchmen huge,
The wolf and snake, the Fenris, that devours,
The Midgard, that engulfs the universe.
O joy! O joy! then shall those stars, that glue
Their blinking scales unto old Ymer's skull,--
The dome of heaven,--shudder from their spheres,
A streaming fire; and thou, O Loké, thou,
Elected annihilation, shalt arise,
To devastate the Earth and Asaheim.
And as this darkness now, this heavy night,
Clings to and chokes us till we, strangling, strive
With purple lips for light, and feel the dark
Drag freezing down the throat to swell the weight
That houses in our hearts and peoples our veins,
So shall thy hate insufferably spread
In fires of Hel, in fogs of Niflheim,
Storm-like from pole to pole, o'erwhelming all.--
The Twilight of the Gods, behold, it comes!
The Twilight of the Gods!--The root-red cock
I seem to hear crow in the halls of Hel!
The blood-red cock, whose cry shall bid thee rise!

"But, oh! thy face! paler it seemeth now
Than icy marble; and the serpent writhes
Its rustling coils and twists its livid length,
Hissing, above thee, pouring eternal pain.--
Oh, could I kiss the lips o'er which he swings!
The lips that once touched living flame to mine!
At which sweet thought, as some sick flower of drought
At dreams of dew, my lips with longing ache!
--Oh, could I gaze once more into thine eyes
Whose starry depths outstarred the midnight heavens!
Or see them laugh as golden morning laughs,
Leaving her steps in roses on the hills,
The peaks that wall the world and pierce the clouds;
The hills, where once we stood, among the pines,
The melancholy pines that plume the crags,
And rock and sing unto the still fiords
Like gaunt wild-women lullabying their babes!
Then could I die e'en as the mortals die,
And smile in dying!--But the serpent baulks
Each effort to behold, or on loved lips
To ease the torture of my soul's desire.
Thy face alone is comfort to my gaze,
Like some dim moon silvering through night and mist.
--Now from their lairs again the monsters creep;
I feel their ghastly touches, and their eyes
Draw steadily nearer, wandering will-o'-the-wisps;
The serpent strives to fang me as he swings;
And in the cup's caked gold the venom swims,
Seethes upward horribly to the horrible edge."
She ceased. And then, heard through the echoing night,
The chained god spoke, tumultuous violence
And rage in every word. His utterance seemed
Large as the thunder when it, rolling, plants,--
Heavy with earthquake and impending ruin,--
Seismic feet on everlasting seas
And mountains silent with eternal ice.
His eyes in hideous labor; and his throat,
Corded and gnarled with veins of boisterous blood,
A crag of fury; and his foaming lips,
A maelstrom of rebellious agony,
Of thwarted rage and wild, arrested wrath.
Fierce vaunter of loud hate, one mighty fist,
Convulsed with clenchment, in its gyve of ore,
Headlong for battle-launching, at the gods
Clutched mad defiance, madder blasphemy;
Yet all unhurled and vain as mists of morn,
Or foam, wind-wasted on the sterile sands
Of rainy seas, when Ran, from whistling caves,
Watching the tempest-driven dragon wreck,
Already in her miser fingers feels
The viking gold that has not yet gone down.
Then all the cave again is dumb with night.
He sees the spotted serpent writhe above;
He sees the poison streaming towards his eyes.
And now her cup is brimmed; but one more drop
Will float the filth gray o'er the venomed edge.
Into the river slowly flowing by
Swiftly she pours the vitriol torture: scarce
A tithe of time it takes, but in that time
The reptile's vomit slimes his helpless face,
Burns to the bone.... All his fierce muscles twist,
Wrenching the knotted steel that locks his limbs,
And shriek on shriek divides the solitudes.
The ocean roars; and, under toppling skies,
The mountains avalanche from pine-pierced sides
Their centuries of snow. Then all the night
Once more is filled with silence and with sighs.

WAR-SONG OF HARALD THE RED

_And this is the song of battle, they sang to the thrash
of the oars,
As the prows of their shield-hung dragons were driven along
the shores_:--

On to the battle! Yo ho for the slaughter!
Hark to the grind of the oars that thunder!
Clash of the prows as they crash through the water,
Hurl through the foam of the seas they sunder!
Up with the axe! and drive through the bristling
Beaks of the foe that our iron has broken!
On through the sleet of the shafts that are whistling,
Arrows of ash, in a wedge that is oaken.
By the eye of Odin! whose frown is war,
Think of the vikings' daughters, who wear
Gold on their hips! to hale by the hair,
Gold-bound, red as the beard of Thor!
Virgins, whose bodies, white-bosomed, are
For rape and ransom!--A kingdom's ravish
Yours! for the sweat and the blood you lavish.

Hark! on the shore how his fierce fangs clamor!
Ocean's, whose rocks are hungry for carrion:--
Ho! 'tis a sound as of swords that hammer
Helms to the brazen snarl of the clarion....
On to the revel of war, my bullies,
Blades, that fury like fire to battle!
On to the banquet, through spray that gullies,
Bray of the beaks and the oars' wild rattle!
When prow grinds prow and the arrows hail,
Think! were it better with hollow-eyed Hel
To rot with cowards? or boast and yell
Hoarse toasts over skulls of the boisterous ale
High in Valhalla where heroes dwell?
In vast Valhalla, where life wends well!
The warrior vault of whose shields with curses
Rings to the roar of the Berserk verses!

YULE

Behold! in the night there was storm; and the rushing of snow and
of sleet;
And the boom of the sea and the moaning of pines in its desolate beat.

And the hall of fierce Erick of Sogn with the clamor of wassail was
filled,
With the clash of great beakers of gold and the reek of the ale that
was spilled.

For the Yule was upon them, the Yule; and they quaffed as from skulls
of the slain,
And shouted loud oaths in hoarse wit, and long quaffing swore laughing
again.

Unharnessed from each shaggy throat, that was hot with brute lust and
with drink,
Each burly wild skin and barbaric tossed, rent from the gold of its
link.

For the Yule was upon them, the Yule, and the _waesheils_ were shouted
and roared
By the Berserks, the eaters of fire, and the Jarls round the ponderous
board.

And huge on the hearth, that writhed, hissing, and bellied, an ingot
of gold,
The Yule-log, the half of an oak from the mountains, was royally
rolled.

And its warmth and its glory, that glared, smote red through the width
of the hall,
And burnished the boar-skins and bucklers and war-axes hung on the
wall.

And the maidens, who hurried big goblets, that bubbled, excessive with
barm,
Blushed rose to the gold of thick curls as the shining steel mirrored
each charm.

And Erick's one hundred gray skalds, at the nod and the beck of the
king,
With the stormy-rolled music of an hundred wild harps made the castle
reëchoing ring.

For the Yule, for the Yule was upon them, and battle and rapine were
o'er;
And Harald, the viking, the red, and his brother lay dead on the shore.

For the harrier, Harald the red, and his merciless brother, black Ulf,
With their men on the shore of the wintery sea were carrion cold for
the wolf.

Behold! for the battle was ended; the battle that clamored all day,
With the rumble of shields that were shocked and of spears that were
splintered like spray:

With the hewing of swords that fierce-lightened like flames and that
smoked with hot blood,
And the crush of the mace that was hammered through helm and through
brain that withstood:

And the cursing and howling of men at their gods,--at their gods whom
they cursed,
Till the caves of the ocean re-bellowed and storm on their battling
burst.

And they fought; in the flying and drifting and silence of covering
snow,
Till the wounded that lay with the dead, with the dead were stiff
frozen in woe.

And they fought; and the mystical flakes that were clutched by the
maniac wind
Drave sharp on the eyes of the kings, made the sight of their warriors
blind.

Still they fought; and with leonine wrath were they met, till the
battle-god, Thor,
In his thunder-wheeled chariot rolled, making end of destruction and
war.

And they fell--like twin rocks of the mountains, or pines, that rush,
hurricane-hurled,
From their world-rooted crags to the ocean below with the wreck of the
world.

But, lo! not in vain their loud vows! on the black iron altars of War
Not in vain as victims, the warriors, their blood as libation to
Thor!...

Lo! a glitter and splendor of arms through the snow and the foam of
the seas
And the terrible ghosts of the vikings and the gauntleted Valkyries!...

Yea, the halls of fierce Erick of Sogn with the turmoil of wassail
are filled,
With the steam of the flesh of the boar, and the reek of the ale that
is spilled.

For the Yule and the victory are theirs, and the _waesheils_ are
shouted and roared
By the Berserks, the eaters of fire, and the Jarls round the ponderous
board.

OLD WORLD IDYLLS

TO R. E. LEE GIBSON

_And one, perchance, will read and sigh:
"What aimless songs! Why will he sing
Of nature that drags out her woe
Through wind and rain, and sun and snow,
From miserable spring to spring?"
Then put me by._

_And one, perhaps, will read and say:
"Why write of things across the sea;
Of men and women, far and near,
When we of things at home would hear--
Well! who would call this poetry?"
Then toss away._

_A hopeless task have we, meseems,
At this late day; whom fate hath made
Sad, bankrupt heirs of song; who, filled
With kindred yearnings, try to build
A tower like theirs, that will not fade,
Out of our dreams._

ACCOLON OF GAUL

_Prelude_

O wondrous legends from the storied wells
Of lost Baranton! where old Merlin dwells,
Nodding a white poll and a grave, gray beard,
As if some Lake Ladyé he, listening, heard,
Who spake like water, danced like careful showers
With blown gold curls through drifts of wild-thorn flowers;
Loose, lazy arms upon her bosom crossed,
An instant seen, and in an instant lost,
With one peculiar note, like that you hear
Dropped by a reed-bird when the night is near,
A vocal gold blown through the atmosphere.

Lo! dreams from dreams in dreams remembered. Naught
That matters much, save that it seemed I thought
I wandered dim with some one, but I knew
Not whom; most beautiful, and young, and true,
And pale through suffering: with curl-crowned brow
Soft eyes and voice, so strange, they haunt me now--
A dream, perhaps, in dreamland.

Seemed that she
Led me along a flower-showered lea
Trammeled with puckered pansy and the pea;
Where poppies spread great blood-red stain on stain,
So gorged with sunlight and the honeyed rain
Their hearts were weary; roses lavished beams;
Roses, wherein were huddled little dreams
That laughed coy, sidewise merriment, like dew,
Or from fair fingers fragrant kisses blew.
And suddenly a river cleft the sward;
And o'er it lay a mist: and it was hard
To see whence came it; whitherward it led;
Like some wild, frightened thing, it foamed and fled,
Sighing and murmuring, from its fountain-head.
And following it, at last I came upon
The Region of Romance,--from whence were drawn
Its wandering waters,--and the storied wells
Of lost Baranton, where old Merlin dwells,
Nodding a white poll and a great, gray beard.
And then, far off, a woman's voice I heard,
Wilder than water, laughing in the bowers,
Like some strange bird: and then, through wild-thorn flowers,
I saw her limbs glance, twinkling as spring showers;
And then, with blown gold curls, tempestuous tossed,
White as a wood-nymph, she a vista crossed,
Laughing that laugh wherein there was no cheer,
But soulless scorn. And so to me drew near
Her sweet lascivious brow's white wonderment,
And gray, great eyes, and hair which had the scent
Of all the wild Brécèliande's perfumes
Drowned in it; and, a flame in gold, one bloom's
Blood-point thrust deep. And, "Viviane! Viviane!"
The wild seemed crying, as if swept with rain;
And all the young leaves laughed; and surge on surge
Swept the witch-haunted forest to its verge,
That shook and sighed and stammered, as, in sleep,
A giant half-aroused: and, with a leap,
That samite-hazy creature, blossom-white,
Showered mocking kisses down; then, like a light
Beat into gusty flutterings by the dawn,
Then quenched, she glimmered and, behold, was gone;
And in Brécèliande I stood alone
Gazing at Merlin, sitting on a stone;
Old Merlin, charmed there, dreaming drowsy dreams;
A wondrous company; as many as gleams
That stab the moted mazes of a beech.
And each grave dream, behold, had power to reach
My mind through magic; each one following each
In dim procession; and their beauty drew
Tears down my cheeks, and Merlin's gray cheeks, too,--
One in his beard hung tangled, bright as dew.--
Long pageants seemed to pass me, brave and fair,
Of courts and tournaments, with silvery blare
Of immaterial trumpets high in air;
And blazoned banners, shields, and many a spear
Of Uther, waved an incorporeal fear:
And forms of Arthur rose and Guenevere,
Of Tristram and of Isoud and of Mark,
And many others; glimmering in the dark
Of Merlin's mind, they rose and glared and then,--
The instant's fostered phantoms,--passed again.
Then all around me seemed a rippling stir
Of silken something,--wilier, lovelier
Than that witch-mothered beauty, Viviane,--
Approaching with dead knights amid her train,
Pale through the vast Brécèliande. And then
A knight, steel-helmeted, a man of men,
Passed with a fool, King Arthur's Dagonet,
Who on his head a tinsel crown had set
In mockery. And as he went his way,
Behind the knight the leaves began to sway,
Then slightly parted--and Morgane le Fay,
With haughty, wicked eyes and lovely face,
Studied him steadily a little space.