Chapter III: Part 3

Even monks planned theft of saintly scalps; stray hairs and chips
of nail and chine,
Divinely shielded through the Alps, would make the fortune of the
Rhine.

I often tried to hide myself from this besetting spook of pelf.
In olive-groves I called in vain to simple faun and acorn-elf.

I pictured kine that kissed their own reflections on the impulsive
Rhone,
A little maid with sunflower hair, a nest we found ... the birds
had flown.

I think Alexius was wise to keep us out. Our hungry eyes
Fixed on his capital. Why go farther when here were rich supplies?

The Pope that cursed our tastes had laid the hand of blessing on
this raid.
Blest chance indeed--as though a man should drink his fill and then
be paid!

Each set to whet his falchion-pet that only friends had tasted yet.
We dressed our hopes in purple silk, wallowed in dreamland's wine
and milk.

Yet more than any Sultan's spoil fair women should repay our toil.
Already some were filled with thoughts that our red cross was meant
to foil.

The notion twinged us. We compared our prospects with the way we
fared
On these lean suburbs and the flats about Barbyses. We were snared!

The very Greeks, whose prayers had lured us into this adventure,
lodged
Their saviours in a baited trap. Lord, how these foxes turned and
dodged.

There lay our army like a log; our camp, our tenets, turned to bog.
We sank. Disorder brought disease that stalked us spectral through
the fog.

The Greeks we came to bolster up against their weakness filled our
cup
With turpitude; the Byzantine put Circe's poison in our wine.

Our aspirations all became mean as our hosts; the inner flame
Went out. From many a starting-point we found a common ground in
shame;

For here no soul can keep its health, but cat-like honour creeps by
stealth
Down side streets where the children breathe an atmosphere of
rotting wealth.

Between our fellow-churches rose the hate that heaven had meant for
foes....
The infidel might well have laughed. Perhaps he did. We came to
blows.

And I was sad that Christians had nothing in common, saving bad
Blood, that our highest dizziest heads could all divide but none
could add.

But when spring lit the Judas-trees our chieftains kissed the
Emperor's knees.
We crossed to Asia sick at heart. Alexius kept us well apart,

Shuffling us o'er the Bosphorus. The number and the rank of us
Exceeded those who went to Troy for Helen the Adulterous.

On the Bithynian plain our force drew up: an hundred thousand horse
With foot and monks and womankind in crowds that none can call to
mind.

Fear stuffed the empty space ahead with devils and the shapes of
dread
That decked our church. A ghastly rush of loneliness made every
head

Feel like a pinpoint. Discontent ran through the score of nations
blent
In cries. Their ribald spokesman forced a drunkard's way to
Godfrey's tent:

_You that have led us through the many tests
Of Hungary, King Caloman, and Thrace,
Who think of kingdoms as of palimpsests
And human nature as a carapace,
Go up and prosper in your lofty chase!
We cannot live on barren mountain-crests.
Our wildest dreams are prisoners that pace
The little space between a woman's breasts._

_Here lies the stronghold that our zeal invests,
This infidel alone we long to face.
This hollow, where our constant fancy nests,
Is more to us than pedestal and dais.
Nay, we will go no farther in the race
For gain, respond no more to mean behests.
We know our cause, and reverently embrace
The little space between a woman's breasts._

_It is our holy land, and we, the guests
Of passion, brand all other hosts as base.
The bees have led us to their treasure-chests,
A foxglove-sceptre and an hyacinth-mace,
The meadow's fleeting broidery and lace.
Their heaven like ours is nigh to vulgar jests.
A blossom's goal and glory is to grace
The little space between a woman's breasts._

_Prince, be content and choose your resting-place,
Ere we be all forgotten with our quests,
And this thin earth go crumbling into space,
The little space between a woman's breasts._

Thereat was scandal, and a priest exclaimed that man was half a
beast.
I could have told him that before. Man was the half I like the
least.

To obviate a sinful fate the monks laid on us many weeks
Of penance, wasting us the more with these inventions of the
Greeks.

Some paid in cash, some chose the lash--their backs were pitiful to
see--
While Bishop Adhémar of Puy recited magic formulæ

That lurched us forward to our doom. We cleft the sultanate of
Roum,
Calling for bread. The peasants fled. We swept the country like a
broom.

Our armed migration choked the road. It ran ahead, a stream that
flowed
Uphill to glory, so it seemed; and so imagination strode--

O Jack o' lantern!--into the unknown. The Virgin on a silver
throne,
Our leaders swore, went on before us. I saw nothing but the Rhone,

The impulsive Rhone that tumbles down, and breaks clean through the
grey-walled town.
I heard it rustle in its bed where others heard the Virgin's gown.

I blamed the foeman for my thirst, for sandstorm, flies, heat,
scurvy--cursed
Them. Piles of grievance fumed until the red fire kindled. Madness
burst

All bounds, and capered in the glare that wrapped us round like
Nessus' shirt.
Each day 'twas there with yards to spare, and would not tear. How
blue can hurt!

In my delirium I smelt a mirage, heard the swallows skim
Above the reeds where angels knelt with envious eyes to watch me
swim.

The preacher said Jehovah's cloud and pillar would go with us. Yea,
The sky was on our heads alway. The sun rose up and cried aloud,

And stood immobilized at noon. We wondered if at Ajalon
The Jews thanked Joshua for the boon of this divine phenomenon.

We came to Nice and formed a siege with tortoise, belfry, catapult,
And curse that brought even less result. Each lordling quarrelled
with his liege,

Layman with priest, until the place surrendered, and again we
lurched
Forward. I heard our name was made. I only saw how it was smirched.

My master clasped a small, soiled glove, and promised deeds for
love's sweet sake
That took my breath, as though his death would please The Burr. I
lay awake

All night afraid to cry for fright. I tried my best to be
full-grown,
A child now loth to be alone. My misery was all my own.

I well recall our knights' first charge. It was as though a loaded
barge
Should seek to crush a dancing skiff. The foe was small, the plain
was large.

Our men returned with horses spent. It seemed the Turkish cowards
meant
To harry, not oppose. Sometimes we caught them full, and down they
went.

Strange that within so short a space I felt the strong effects of
grace!
The preaching man upon his ass called it a miracle. It was.

I, polishing my master's helmet, also longed to overwhelm
The miscreants, to hew in bits the devil and his earthly realm.

A boy's high spirits, weariness, a heart impulsive as the Rhone,
The wish to get this business done, the thought of little
Sunflower-tress--

A flower beside The Burr, and "Why, if knights sing rubbish, should
not I?"--
The preaching man's persistence, these stirred me to action by
degrees.

We had our fill at Dorylæum. Our rogues were Paladins. We won,
And weighed our booty by the ton. That night we chanted a Te Deum,

A myriad voices in the dark; they rose like one colossal lark
Ere dawn. My soul flew up with them to see the new Jerusalem

And spite my tutor. I was mad to be a fighting-man, would pad
My arms like muscles. So my lord took me to foray. I was glad.

I had one thought: my hands were wet. That angered me: my mouth was
dry.
I had one fear: I might forget my master's silly battle-cry.

Belike 'twas well no foe would stand--our cavaliers were out of
hand--
So I was baulked. With scarce a blow we filed across the wasted
land

For leagues, till Baldwin turned aside, and out of Peradventure
carved
His slice, Edessa. We were plied to march on Antioch half-starved.

For seven months sheer courage toiled to take the town. Its
ramparts foiled
Our engines. Sulkiness sat down within us, and temptation coiled

Tight round our bodies; every vice was lurking like a cockatrice.
Ah, flesh can never quite repel the sinuous things which thoughts
entice.

You honey-coloured Syrian girls, whose voices turned our knights to
thirls,
I looked away and stopped my ears by thinking of the glossier
merles

At home. The arm upheld by Hur had not sufficed him to deter
The dissipation of our force, alas. My lord deceived The Burr.

'Twas worse when treachery let us in. Blood, lechery, pillage, fire
and din
Burned an impression on my mind: the sexual ugliness of sin.

Cool Bohemond called Antioch his. Ere we had killed our mutineers,
We the besiegers were besieged by Kurbugha and his Amírs.

Alternate famine and carouse brought plague; but doubtless God
allows
Expensive trials of faith that we might learn the magic formulæ.

We melted, melted; kites were fed upon us, dogs ran dripping red
From piles of nameless carrion, the race that Europe might have
bred.

Throughout our ranks desertion raged by daily sermons unassuaged.
The preaching man was first in this "rope-dancing." Disillusion
aged

My youth by years. My master stayed. If he had erred he promptly
paid.
The pestilence ran after him. Despite the fervour I displayed

He died of sores, this prince of tilt, though guarded by ten
hallowed charms,
This subject of all _trouvère_-lilt, lord in an hundred ladies'
arms.

Oh, how I struggled to be brave when the Pope's legate, grey and
grim,
Said simply this beside the grave: "Christ died for you. You died
for Him."

Only his jester seemed to care, and ceased awhile to swear and
daff.
"Who," he repeated in despair, "will pay me for his epitaph?"

_Poor friend, this alien hungry land
Has closed her lips upon her prey.
The tree is spoiled into her hand;
She sucks the brook's thin veins away._

_A sterner voice than bade you come
To reap the tears that exiles sow
Has called you to her longer home,
That neither bids nor lets you go._

_Seven times you baulked her lawless laws,
And foiled the customs of the year;
But Death defends the tyrant's cause,
And makes the silent court his lair._

_The lease of life, that none can own,
Is written on her agent's roll;
And from the desert and the sown
He takes a harsh and equal toll,_

_High-handed, scorning code or text.
No hope the debtor's gaol unlocks.
A friend appeals? He is the next
To occupy the narrow box._

_The witness cowers, pale with fear,
When Death the stalker passes by;
And only prays he may not hear
That ugly sound--a victim's cry._

_One weeps; his eyes are wet as long
As on Death's hand the blood is wet.
He says: "The King can do no wrong!"
And craves permission to forget._

_How briefly to an echo clings
The memory of these solemn days,
The thought of those tremendous things
That Death implies but never says._

_An hour ago we laid you down.
The tender, tardy autumn rain
Is dried within the dusty town,
And we are at our rounds again._

With every round our spirits sank in bodies lean and members lank.
I saw the soul of man, a cave, a wick that smouldered and smelled
rank.

Men's fluid facts may wash the grime from pictures of a distant
time,
But I can paint the truth in one small touch: our poets ceased to
rhyme.

Such was the army's hopelessness. I understood, who once had seen
Our fading gardener rouse himself to kick and curse the wolf-cub,
Life.

I would not let my feet desert, but oh the woods--the woods of home
That bent and beckoned in the damp zephyr in vain! I could not
stoop

To play false in an enterprise however mad, if once begun.
Besides another miracle was wrought in me. I was in love.

I was enamoured of dear Christ; His utter beauty struck me dumb,
His face alone could compensate for scenes that almost made me long

For blindness. Yea, to Him I turned from all this heartache,
nightly kissed
His hand with passion. I at least would not betray the children's
Friend.

Haply His strength has always lain in contrast. I found strength to
press
Toward the mark. Not so the host: we could not kick it to its feet.

Then heaven inspired us to devise a pious fraud--The Holy Lance.
We hid it in Saint Peter's crypt, and dug it up. The people wept

With rapture at this talisman, and sang the Psalm "Let God arise."
Also our chiefs--they knew my zeal--bade me complete the heartening
sign.

White-plumed, white-horsed, with golden shield and halo, I
contrived to appear
On the horizon, waved my sword while Adhémar proclaimed Saint
George.

Our men responded with a shout. Through the five gates they tumbled
out,
An headlong torrent. In a trice the infidel was put to rout,

And I joined in to hack and prod. Pure Tancred praised me with a
nod.
Ascetic Godfrey even spoke to me: "Lad, you belong to God."

I won my spurs. They _made_ me proud. Before my sword the wizards
bowed,
Though me they washed. In vigil and fast I joined the perfect
order, vowed

To hold my manhood chaste, to gird on might with right and
courtesy,
To speak the truth, and so to be at variance with the common herd.

Such loftiness a man can feel once in a flash: strong arms, clean
hands
That forged us into iron bands to unify the world with steel.

But as I left the altar daft with the ambition I had quaffed--
A word can kill a century--one of my perfect brothers laughed:

_I took the vow of virtue
As others take to vice.
I could not break my heart of you.
Men call that sacrifice._

_The priests applauded nature.
Poor devil, she was loth
Enough. The love of God and you
Has made me hate you both._

And I was sad that Christians, clad in robes so dazzling, were not
glad
To keep them spotless from the world, and give the Virgin all they
had.

Yet I was racked by continence of all we rightly rank as sense.
I hungered for the Sunflower-tress that now my lips would never
press.

I wrenched and wrestled to believe that God had sent us here to
grieve
Our bodies with this fruitlessness, that only fakirs could achieve

His purpose. Then in blind revolt my soul like an unbroken colt
Ran round and round an empty field. The hedge was thick. I could
not bolt,

Though one poor knight on stiffened knee revealed beneath his
breath to me
His thoughts on women while the monks recited magic formulæ.

I sought for solace in renown. Men watched me swagger through the
town
The youngest knight in Christendom. When women passed I tried to
frown.

A year I suffered in this way before the wreck of our array
Would undertake the final march. My soul was saved by movement. May

Was with us, when my tutor closed his wintry Juvenal and posed
Mid nightingales to quote and kiss the _Pervigilium Veneris_.

I drove his authors from my head, and read Augustin hard instead;
But sap was mounting in my veins and western groves where finches
wed.

To these no sound of sapphire seas, no stunted firs of Lebanon,
Not Tyrian dyes nor Tripoli's loud yellows deafened. We ran on

Through landmarks famed in Holy Writ, Emmaus, Bethlehem ... at last
We saw the walls of Zion lit blood-red by sunset and the past.

The conquest of another world unfurled beneath our feet, the land
Of miracle and mystery lay as a bauble in our hand.

Men flung their caps up, feigned a swoon. With prostrate lines of
us the moon
Drew silver circles round the site. A cock crowed--many hours too
soon.

We thought to prise the gates ajar. My tutor wrote their private
Lar
Or else--with Tacitus--their folk designed them for eternal war.

The moat was wide; we feebly tried to stop its gape with pebbles,
cried
"Fall, Jericho!" The blessèd wall stood firm; but Christ was on our
side.

The Church had saved Him from His wan repute and thrust Him in our
van,
Bronzed, scarred. Alas, the first crusade had made Him out a
fighting man!

He taught the Turks to mock Giaours!... sent timely Genoese to
build
Wheeled wooden turrets. These we filled brimful. Jerusalem was
ours.

We entered reverent, barefoot; slew three livelong nights and
mornings through,
Then paused to sing a thanksgiving. We massacred the morrow too.

And I was glad a Christian lad could boast of some small
suffering _ad
Majorem Dei gloriam_. I only longed to burn Baghdad.

Nay, I can say I never hid to chamber as my fellows did.
I felt my conscience clear as frost, and touched no woman--God
forbid.

I set my contrite soul apart with mass, procession, penance, rites
That took me out to see the sights, brushing ecstatic lanes athwart

The quiddering mob with tears of joy--my tutor's phrase was hoi
polloi--
Though few were left. Some Greeks of ours confused Jerusalem with
Troy.

But most the bestial German louts made even their hardest allies
sick;
They ran to mutilate the quick and sniff the dead with joyous
snouts.

Shriven, forgiven, we embraced each stone that Christ had touched,
and placed
Such relics under treble guard. One note in our rejoicings jarred.

It seemed some types of Jewish dog escaped the flaming synagogue,
And their ingratitude was base. They joined to form a
wailing-place.

I heard them as I roamed among blind alleys dark and overhung
By one-eyed dens. With whining nose against the wall the pack gave
tongue:

_Behold Thy people, Lord, a race of mourners.
Through this Thy sacred dwelling-place they creep
Like strangers. Hearken, Lord, in holes and corners
We sit alone and weep._

_For Thy decree, most terrible and holy,
That as the fathers sow the sons shall reap,
For all Thy just affliction of the lowly,
We sit alone and weep._

_For all the glory that is now departed,
For all the stones that Thou hast made an heap,
Yea, for the city of the broken-hearted,
We sit alone and weep._

_For all the wealth wherewith Thou hadst endowed her,
For all our shepherds gone astray like sheep,
For all Thy temple's jewels ground to powder,
We sit alone and weep._

_Because our soul is chastened as with lashes,
Because Thine anger like a stormy deep
Goes over us, in sackcloth and in ashes
We sit alone and weep._

Nobody gave them heed; indeed each man was thinking how to speed
His interests, and if the prey would satisfy ambition or need.

To honest minds with zeal imbued the Pope's indulgence, their own
merit
Bestowed some licence to be lewd, and take--their preachers said
"inherit."

Even I who was in love with Christ, I with the conscience clean and
cold
That hankered not for lands or gold, was wondering how to clinch my
hold

On reputation, while our chiefs, before we could consolidate,
Rode a great wallop round the State and split it into petty fiefs.

Their overlords revolted me. Alas, for our brief unity!
Edessa snarled at Antioch, Jerusalem at Tripoli.

Poor Godfrey, who would not accept a crown where his Redeemer wore
Thorns, nor be strong where Jesus wept! From the beginning weakness
crept

Into our councils. Worse, we watched the bulk of our brave lads
disperse
Well-pleased. At most we raised the ghost of needful power to hold
their post.

Franks and Provincials, German brutes that bullied babes and
prostitutes,
Lombards and Flemings, made for home with clapping and the sound of
flutes.

It flowed away, the unstable stuff, to whom a cause was but a noun.
They stood to sea. Thank heaven 'twas rough! My place was here with
my renown.

They vanished ... home ... to Sunflower-tress ... home, where a man
may die obscure!
Far off a carle of Albemarle trolled chanties like a Siren's lure.

_East, are you calling still,
Who tried your strength of will
For naught on brown Ulysses long ago?
We have an island too,
And haul away from you
To cleaner kin that bend a stronger bow._

_Your caravans string out
On many a golden route
The turbaned Magi's offerings; but we
Steer forth on loner trails
Through rough wind-scented vales
To England, the oasis of the sea._

_Child Jesus chose you, East,
Not that He loved us least,
But just because His Father had foreseen
The dear and only Son
Might dwell too long upon
Our swinging greys and many-coloured green._

So we were left alone. The spring broke out in buds of bickering.
Each summer brought contentious fruit. Strife waxed with every
waning king.

And I waxed also, better known, resolved to reap what I had sown.
My childless manhood fixed my heart. The Holy Land was all my own.

I grew in grace with man--I hoped with God; from Beersheba to Dan
I went about my Father's work. Faith could not shirk what Faith
began.

Sometimes qualms came. I looked askance on Bishop Daimbert's
schemes to enhance
His seat. The native Christians sighed they missed the Caliph's
tolerance.

Not that had hurt me, but the void which love will make if
unemployed.
I spent my strength to keep him quiet, and free the thoughts that
he decoyed,

Till woods and Rhone were out of range. I often wondered at the
change
In nature's child, in me. The formulæ were there. "God's ways are
strange."

Yet in my struggle with the powers of darkness I recalled the
showers
Of light that fought the undergrowth to catch the singing of the
flowers.

Time passed, and no one seemed to reck of Zenghi, the first Atabek,
Though every year we failed to act the Saracens grew more compact.

In vain I urged that we might fall, so slender was our human wall,
So numberless the foe beside the Templars and the Hospital.

The answer was that dyke and fosse were useless when we had the
Cross,
With other relics by the score, to guard against defeat or loss.

My prophecies of coming ills fell on deaf ears and weakly wills.
I did my best. You know I did, who saw me peer beyond the hills

Where Karak like a lighthouse loomed at waves of sand that never
spumed,
The tideless main, an ocean-plain bare, petrified. Its silence
boomed.

I saw in all that vastitude, the one, the drab, the many-hued,
No sign of life, no moving speck; and yet I knew that trouble
brewed.

I tortured every hour to find material things to prop behind--
Forgive me, God!--Your earthly realm. The need was great, for it
was blind.

The mathematics of Abul Hassan, three hundred years at school
In Arabic philosophy, showed that the West was still a fool.

Nay, gently, call her still a babe. How should she know that I, the
Great,
Had learned from savages to prate of compass and of astrolabe.

Our miracles were not so sure to heal as Rhazes' simplest cure.
His friends the moon and stars obeyed the rules that Abul Wafa
made.

My stolen lore raised me above my fellows. Everything but love
Was mine, respect, authority. The jealous Churchmen dared not move.

Our infant realm could not dispense with me, its shield and main
defence.
I knew the Damascene recipe for making steel, and made it cheap.

My mind was fertile in resorts. I spent the pilgrims' fees on
forts,
And settled, for their skill in trade, Venetian slavers at our
ports.

Howbeit I trembled lest our main enthusiasm should be for gain.
I stripped myself to work against the working of the money-brain.

And I was glad I passed for mad and single-eyed as Galahad.
I sacrificed in saving Christ the profit that I might have had.

Nothing that I could do availed. My tongue grew bitter, girded,
railed.
My labour only builded Me, but not the kingdom. So I failed.

Our Viscounts could but show their gums, while from Aleppo, Hama,
Homs,
The foe crept onward like the months, culling our conquests like
ripe plums.

For all response in Chastel Blanc and towering Markab-of-the-Sea
Some clerkly knight in red-crossed white recited magic formulæ;

Then darkly hinted science, hell and I were leagued, because their
spell
Would not or could not stave the blow that I foresaw. Edessa fell.

Curse our degenerate Poullains! The breed had need of spurs not
reins.
To stand an empty sack upright was easier than to warm their veins

Save with amours. One night I knelt to pray; but on the battlement
Hard by a lordling twanged a harp. I smelt the bastard's eastern
scent.

He thought his leman lay behind my casement, where the jasmin
twined
And almost jingled.... Oh the woods at home and whitethroats
calling blind!

_Suppose you left that window and came down
To meet me. Do not turn away.
Also you need not frown.
I only say:
"Suppose."_

_Suppose--you are a woman of resource--
The fastenings of your door undone.
No! They are not.... Of course!
But, just for fun,
Suppose._

_Suppose that--safe among the trees below
The terraces--you chanced to find ...
Impossible!... I know,
But never mind.
Suppose._

_Suppose that--being there--an eager arm
Drew you towards the little dell....
Why redden? Where's the harm?
You might as well
Suppose...._

_Suppose that, bending over you, a man
Breathed words of which you knew the gist.
Suppose it!... Yes, you can....
No, I insist....
Suppose!_

_Suppose you shut the window? Now? Pray do,
And take a lonely night to learn
This tune shut in with you.
Till I return,
Suppose...._

Then I peeped out. Some breath divine had made his face, compared
with mine,
An angel's. Love with all its faults had set there our Creator's
sign.

That shook me. One of us was wrong. Which? He or I? His soul was
vexed
Neither by this world nor the next, but floated in a bubble of
song.

It haunted me, as he had said; it chimed and rhymed about my bed.
It filled my head with Sunflower-tress; but she--I writhed--was old
or dead.

Was all my suffering a waste? Had superstition wed me chaste
To Its effect? Was this my Cause? My tutor in the dark grimaced.

I saw him snug at home, and how he would have chuckled at my vow!
Well, who laughs last.... I pictured him a dotard or in hell by
now.

I prayed for help all night; and, warned by lost Edessa, Baldwin
made
Great efforts to placate our God. The answer was a fresh crusade.

This was an answer none could doubt. We heard a preacher more
devout
Than ours was quartering the west, and pulling true believers out.

He hight Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the home of light and
miracles.
The wives and mothers trembled so before his spirit's tentacles,

They hid their males--in vain. He swept the Emperor Conrad with
him, kept
The collar of his pale adept, emasculated Louis Sept.

He cured King's Evils, raised the dead, he cast out devils by the
gross.
'Twas said he promised us twelve legions of angels.... From the
darkest regions

Men flocked to Metz and Ratisbon. News came of more than half a
million,
Not counting those that rode apillion. Our battle was as good as
won.

Such glorious news might well inflame our hopes. We waited. Nothing
came,
Not even light Turcopuli nor Conrad's Golden-footed Dame.

Our Poullains first began to whine; the fainthearts said the fault
was mine.
Saint Bernard was the oracle of Europe, I of Palestine.

And nothing came ... no troops.... The Greek misled, starved,
poisoned, murdered them,
Betrayed them to the Turk, whose bleak deserts went over them. Week
by week

We waited. Nothing. Cadmus saw them cut to bits, Attalia's maw
Could not be sated with their ruck. King Louis' mind had just one
flaw:

He would not hear of strategy, staked all on supernatural help.
And nothing came, and nothing came. Our half-bred curs began to
yelp

"Good God, if truly God is good!" They kissed the Cross. Gems hid
the wood.
Had He forgotten? Was He deaf? Could such things be? Who
understood?

Not I, though I had kept my word to save the Lamb by fire and
sword.
And after twelve long lustra spent in service this was my reward.

Louis and Conrad struggled through one day with some small retinue.
I watched. Almost I could foretell what they and Providence would
do.

And I remember, as we fared, a Sufi--so the sect is named--
Sat by the road as though he cared no jot for us, while he
declaimed:

_Her home is in the heart of spaciousness,
In the mid-city of ideals. The site
Is harmony, the walls are made of light.
There with the mother-thoughts she stands to bless
The godlike sons sent forth with her caress
To make new worlds. I see them all unite
Into the whole that our most starry flight
Of worship knew far off, and strove to express.
What can we do for her? We run to ask
As restless children for a grown-up task,
While wisdom in the porch, their kind old host,
Smiles at nurse nature, and replies: The most,
The least that we can do for Beauty is
To love for love's sake and serve God for His._

But Conrad drove his lance in jest right through the ragamuffin's
chest,
Because his creed was not as ours; and on we rode. I lost my zest.

To take Damascus was our plan, relying on a talisman.
I knew that this would not suffice, for I was still a fighting man.

It ended in repulse and shame. Saint Bernard proved we were to
blame
For want of faith. Ah, some of us had had too much. We said the
same

Of him. At our return thick mobs of women filled the church with
bobs
And bows, poor puppets, trying hard to sing between their stifled
sobs:

_God, whose Son has fathomed sorrow,
Give a mother strength to say:
Mine has faced and found To-morrow.
I will try to face To-day._

They turned to me. They thought me wise because I had been led by
lies
To blind myself to them; and now I saw things through a woman's
eyes,

And I went out. Not yet the end. Since innocence alone could save,
Saints hit on infant infantry, and fifty thousand found the grave.

My gorge rose, yet I stopped my ears. I had no hope, but I was
tarred
With fame too much to show my fears. My duty lay in dying hard.

Oh irony! That fame increased the more its robes were patched and
pieced.
My whole ambition was fulfilled when power and confidence had
ceased.

The women kissed my feet, my horse; they clung to me like my
remorse.
I that set out to make the world had made myself believe by force.

Nay, I that knew we were reprieved at best, had I in truth
believed?
My youth came back. I seemed to meet my tutor's sneer in every
street.

Fate cursed us with three minor kings, a leper then. Against these
Things
Salah-ad-Din combined the entire orient. I wished our fate had
wings

Instead of feet to end our dumb, keen, futile questionings, to numb
The brain that binds us with the chain of kingdom go and kingdom
come.

One of our knights for plunder's sake undid us, roused the foe who
brake
In through the pass of Banias, cutting our lands in two like cake.

The hour was here, but not the man. That murderer Guy de Lusignan
Was sent to head our fight for life. The craven took for talisman

ME and my hundred years, alas, a relic of the man I was.
I toiled to still our private feuds. We marched upon Tiberias,

For none would listen when I urged our leaders to await attack.
We marched across the waterless inferno. Summer burnt us black.

The Moslems scorched us with Greek fire. As rain upon a funeral
pyre
Their arrows hissed in sheets upon the smoking scrub. "Go on!"
"Retire!"

Our rabble cried, starting aside like broken bows; they tried to
hide,
Split, fled for refuge to a hill, did nothing while the Templars
died.

When all was lost I cut my way out through the thicket of the fray,
And galloped for Jerusalem to adjure Guy's Queen to stand at bay.

In this last desperate passage each proud noble still opposed his
friend.
A little while and we were penned, and yet a little while a breach

Was made. Jehovah's chosen seat was tottering, but no Paraclete
Came down to comfort us. I made some sallies. Then the Queen would
treat.

Perhaps in our appeal for ruth my wording stumbled on the truth,
"One God that went by many names," or else I knew Him in my youth,

Or else that Sufi haunted me with something that I could not see,
Something that only had not been because we would not let it be.

And when the foe marched in, I own that I was thinking of the Rhone
Long, long ago, and wondering--a child once more--if it had grown.

Yet there remained the sharpest cup to drain: the moan of us went
up,
When from the topmost dome was hurled the Sign that should have
ruled the world.

Down, down it rumbled with our grand designs. All we had built or
planned,
Toiled, bled for, crumbled at a touch, was ruined like a house of
sand.

So soon we pass. The wind knows why. The efforts of a century,
Three generations' handiwork failed in the twinkling of an eye.

And I was sad to think that shadows occupy us all. I had
No hope of earth. What boots a toy that thinks its maker raving
mad?

My soul had passed through every phase and, counting forty thousand
days,
Was farther off than at the start from comprehending heaven's ways

Or bowing to them. I came nearest when I pressed my childish ear
Earthward through briar and bramble bowers to catch the singing of
the flowers.

The last remains of faith were shaken when I, the oracle, was
taken.
My pride was made to sleep in chains. I prayed that I might never
waken,

But woke. They gave me to a _rais_ who wanted cattle, not advice.
He flogged me down to Damietta. I was old and fetched no price.

Nathless my battling heart was brave enough to work me till I
dropped.
I passed for twopence to a Copt who sold me as a galley-slave

To Muscat. In the rhythmic stroke, old, undefeated, gnarled as oak
I creaked and strained against my fate, until that Sufi-something
broke.

'Twas not my heart. An inner morn put the dark age in me to scorn,
And in the light I found myself, a child at play with worlds
unborn,

For all that I had thought and read, and fought and watched the
world be led
By any who contrived to cut a knot with that blunt tool, the head.

I laughed to think how sparrows might look down upon our highest
flight,
While each succeeding age would have its oracle or stagyrite,

Would trace the good we never did, the evil that we never saw,
And out of our blind pyramid extract a stepping-stone to Law.

Here, where ambition had to cease in servitude, I tasted peace,
Free of illusion stretched and yawned. A fool would clamour for
release.

I make the rowers' bench a throne to think, and thought implies
Alone,
Of changing woods and endless streams. My happiness is all my own.

And often, when my mates deplore a brother who shall row no more,
I talk about my wolf-cub, Life. They think I speak in metaphor.

They gather round me all agog, they think a chronicle and log
Of Progress lies in withered hands. Their cry is for an epilogue.

Has aught been drafted yet? A blot, an echo void and polyglot.
Each century is written off as preface. Yes, most true.... Of what?

My gathered weight had held me bound to find for every fog a
ground,
For every riddle a reply, an end to Being that goes round.

Now I can say, I do not know if there will be a book at all,
Or if the deepest chapters go beyond some writing on the wall,

Though wiser worlds will yet embark, sworn to eclipse our sorry
trades,
Succeed, and leave their little mark: a dynasty of thought that
fades,

Fresh undergrowths of formulæ. Through these no _human_ eye can see
The open glade--the _last_ crusade, in which Jerusalem might be

The symbol of all peopled space, and Time an emblem of the day
On which the nations march as one to liberate and not to slay.

A story has no finish when it leads to nowhere out of ken?
O friend, the lack of knowledge brings wisdom within the reach of
men;

For whether hope can ever fit the future matters not a whit.
My duty is to tug my oar--so long as I am chained to it.

XIX

FUSION

It was fulfilled. The giant _dhow_ bestirred
Herself, burst from her slender moorings, ran
Exulting on her course beyond the green
Thin shallows to the deeper violet
Of that great gem wherein the continents
Are flaws. With creaking oars and fluttering sails
The wingèd ghost swept outward. On the prow
Unveiled the Queen stood whiter than the sails,
And save the revelation made no sign;
And all the sound of singing was brought low.
Then, as the vision vanished in the hushed
Twilight that painted out the caravan,
Leaving the pilgrims but a _burnûs_-blur
On the drab canvas of the shore, a wail
Rose, and to them the Dreamer's last reply:

"The aimless spindrift mingles with the scats
Where suddenly the desert is the beach.
A low wind whimpers up and down the flats
Seeking some obstacle to lend it speech.

"The sky bleeds pale as from a mortal wound,
Darkening the waters. To a treble E
Gulls stiffly wheel their nomad escort round
A white sail dwindling in the impassive sea.

"A last beam smites it with a benison.
The lantern twinkles fainter at its mast.
It bears the purpose in me that is gone,
The only thing that cannot be, the past.

"Let there be night. Shall evensong complain?
My love was utter. Now I seek no sign.
Mine eyes have seen, and shall not see again.
Out of the deep shall call no voice of mine.

"Yet I, whose happiness is hidden from view,
Have climbed the hill and touched eternity,
And Pisgah is a memory--of you,
A white sail sinking in the summer sea."

The ship drove spaceward to the skyline's crater,
The last of day flared vibrant as a cry,
And in the Dreamer Emptiness loomed greater
Than the unrifted pumice of the sky.

He turned to see the friends whose hope had ended
Like his beside the gulf. He was alone.
The singers and the glory that had blended
With meaner notes and lowly, all were gone

Into thin air. But, patient of his tether,
Enduring as the dream he would not break,
Only old Tous remained. As back together
They fared, once more it seemed the camel spake:

"Lo, these the fleeting and the true,
The keen to sacrifice and slow,
The plumed, the crawling, all were You
That started hither long ago.
For man is many when begun,
But Love can weave his ends to one.

"The new, the ancient, song and prose,
The lower road, the higher aim,
The clean, the draggled, dust and snows
Were you the striving, you the same.
Pride and endeavour, love and loss,
The pattern is the threads that cross.

"Tilth, waste and water, sand and sap,
Tare, thorn and thistle, wine and oil,
Run through _your_ Nature like a map,
Are YOU. The ores that vein the soil
Of time and substance manifold
Await the hour that makes them gold,

"That found the force of you dispersed
On all adventure save a quest,
And part perhaps was on the worst.
It sent you all upon the best,
Wherein the journey is the goal.
Now leaving you they leave you whole.

"The rabble melts, but more remains:
The golden opportunity
By which the choir in us attains
Not unison but unity.
We feel the sunbeam, not the motes.
The Voice is made of many notes.

"Slave, merchant, scholar, fighting-man,
The gambling, stumbling, praying kith
We called the Singing Caravan,
Have made their song at least no myth
Not dawn to which yon skylark soared
But earth is his and your reward.

"The story ends, but not the book.
Sufi, the Queen that you ensued
Led and shall lead you still to look
On peace--it is not solitude.
Through her your warring kingdoms met,
And here is room for no regret."

So Dreamer-of-the-Age returned
With comfort, all his being fused
At last, and thus at night he mused
Beside the fire that in him burned:

"Heirs of the beauty yet to be,
Hail, from however far ahead
Or out of sight I hear you tread
The dust that made this tale and me.

"Each day shall raise me to rejoice
That lovers such as we must bear
The unbroken chain of life and share
Its thanksgiving. Perhaps my voice

"Shall be the servant of your mind,
Your linkman waiting in the arch
Of phantom city-gates to march
With you by secret ways. The wind

"Shall tell me of you, he and I
Be keenly with you, when you go
Forth in my footsteps and the glow
Of movement, steadfast to deny

"Only the frailer self. My grief
Shall answer your unspoken word
Through blithe interpreters, a bird
Waking, the sounds of rill and leaf.

"By many a caravanserai
I shall not fail to watch you come,
You of some far millennium,
Who, listening to the bird, will say:

"'I seem to know that tune of his;
He sings what all can understand.'
In the clear water dip your hand:
'His deepest note was only this.'

"You shall be glad of me, the shade,
Sighing 'O friend.' And I shall keep
The benediction of your sleep;
And, when the woods of darkness fade,

"Shall waken with you, I that had
Love to the full, and praised my lot,
Trusting in truth to be forgot
For worthier verse. Ah, make me glad,

"You that come after me, and call
From summits that outstrip my hopes.
Yet I shall linger on the slopes
And dwell with those who gave their all."

XX

LONG LEAVE

I bow my head, O brother, brother, brother,
But may not grudge you that were All to me.
Should any _one_ lament when this our Mother
Mourns for so many sons on land and sea.
God of the love that makes two lives as one
Give also strength to see that England's will be done.

Let it be done, yea, down to the last tittle,
Up to the fullness of all sacrifice.
Our dead feared this alone--to give too little.
Then shall the living murmur at the price?
The hands withdrawn from ours to grasp the plough
Would suffer only if the furrow faltered now.

Know, fellow-mourners--be our cross too grievous--
That One who sealed our symbol with His blood
Vouchsafed the vision that shall never leave us,
Those humble crosses in the Flanders mud;
And think there rests all-hallowed in each grave
A life given freely for the world He died to save.

And, ages hence, dim tramping generations
Who never knew and cannot guess our pain--
Though history count nothing less than nations,
And fame forget where grass has grown again--
Shall yet remember that the world is free.
It is enough. For this is immortality.

I raise my head, O brother, brother, brother.
The organ sobs for triumph to my heart.
What! Who will think that ransomed earth can smother
Her own great soul, of which you are a part!
The requiem music dies as if it _knew_
The inviolate peace where 'tis already well with you.

EPILOGUE

"It's not as easy as you think,"
The nettled poet sighed.
"It's not as good as I could wish,"
The publisher replied.
"It might," the kindly critic wrote,
"Have easily been _worse_."
"We will not read it anyhow,"
The public said, "it's verse."

PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS

WEST NORWOOD, LONDON

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

All unusual, archaic and inconsistent spellings and usage have been maintained as in the original text. The only changes made were:

In the original text, the words "polymêtis" and "hoi polloi" were written in Greek.

I added the entries for "In Memoriam" and "Acknowledgements" to the Table of Contents.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Singing Caravan, by Robert Vansittart