Idyllic Monologues: Old and New World Verses

My Lady, you know, how nobly born!
Haughty of form, with a head that rose
Like a dream of empire; love and scorn
Made haunts of her eyes; and her lips were bows
Whence pride imperious flashed flower and thorn.

And I—oh, I was nobody: one
Her worshiper only; who chose to be
Silent, seeing that love alone
Was his only badge of nobility,
Set in his heart's escutcheon.

How long ago does the springtime look,
When we wandered away to the hills! the hills,—
Like the land in the tale in the fairy-book,—
Covered with gold of the daffodils,
And gemmed with the crocus by brae and brook!

When I gathered a branch from a hawthorn tree,
For her hair or bosom, from boughs that hung
Odorous of heaven and purity;
And she thanked me smiling; then merrily sung,
Laughingly sung, while she looked at me:—

"There dwelt a princess over the sea—
Right fair was she, right fair was she—
Who loved a squire of low degree,
But married a king of Brittany—
Ah, woe is me!

"And it came to pass on the wedding-day—
So people say, so people say—
That they found her dead in her bridal array,
Dead, and her lover beside her lay—
Ah, well-away!

"A sour stave for your sweets," she said,
Pressing the blossoms against her lips:
Then petal by petal the branch she shred,
Snowing the blooms from her finger-tips,
Tossing them down for her feet to tread.

What to her was the look I gave
Of love despised! though she seemed to start,
Seeing, and said, with a quick hand-wave,
"Why, one would think that that was your heart,"
While her face with a sudden thought grew grave.

But I answered nothing. And so to her home
We came in the twilight; falling clear,
With a few first stars and a moon's curved foam,
Over the hush of meadow and mere,
Whence the boom of the bittern would often come.

Would you think that she loved me?—Who can say?—
What a riddle unread was she to me!—
When I kissed her fingers and turned away
I wanted to speak, but—what cared she,
Though her eyes looked soft and she begged me stay!

Though she lingered to watch me—that might be
A slim moon-beam or the evening haze,—
But never my Lady's drapery
Or wistful face!—in the ivy maze....
Leona of Verne—why, what cared she!

So the days went by, and the Summer wore
Her hot heart out; and, a mighty slayer,
The Autumn harried the land and shore,
And the world was red with his wrecks; but grayer
That land with the ghosts of the nevermore.

The sheaves of the Summer had long been bound;
The harvests of Autumn had long been past;
And the snows of the Winter lay deep around,
When the dark news came and I knew at last;
And the reigning woe of my heart was crowned.

So I sought her here, the young Earl's bride;
In the ancient room at the oriel dreaming,
Pale as the blooms in her hair; and, wide,
Her robe's rich satin, flung stormily, gleaming,
Like shimmering silver, twilight-dyed.

I marked as I stole to her side that tears
Were vaguely large in her beautiful eyes;
That the loops of pearls on her throat, and years
Old lace on her bosom were heaved with sighs;
So I spoke what I thought—"Then, it appears"—

And stopped with, it seemed, my soul in my gaze—
"That you are not happy, Leona of Verne?
There is that at your heart which—well, betrays
These mocking mummeries.—Live and learn!—
And this is the truth that the poet says:—

"'I went to my love and I told with my heart,
In words of the soul, that are silent in speech,
All of my passion, too sacred for art;
But she heard me not—for I could not reach
Her in that world of which she is part.'—

"That world, where I saw you as one afar
Sees palms and waters, and knows that sands,
Pitiless sands, before him are;
Yet follows ever with helpless hands
Till he sinks at last.—You were my star,

"My hope, my heaven!—I loved you!... Life
Is less than nothing to me!"... She turned,
With a wild look, saying—"Now I am his wife
You come and tell me!—Indeed you are learn'd
In the language of hearts that's unheard!"... A Knife,

As she ceased and leaned on a cabinet,—
A curve of scintillant steel, keen, cold,—
Fell icily clashing; some curio met
Among Asian antiques, bronze and gold,
Mystical, curiously graven and set.

A Bactrian dagger, whose slightest prick
Through its ancient poison was death, I knew;
If true that she loved me—then!—And quick
To the unspoken thought she replied, "'T is true!
I have loved you long, and my soul was sick,

"Sick for the love that has made me weak,
Weak to your will even now!"—And more
She said, in my arms, that I shall not speak—
And the dagger there on the polished floor
Ever her eyes, while she spoke, would seek.

"'And it came to pass on the wedding-day'"—
Then my lips for a moment were crushed to hers—
"'That they found her dead in her bridal array,'"
She sang; then said, "You finish the verse!
Finish the song, for you know the way."

And I whispered "yes," for my mind had thought
Her own thought through—that life were a hell
To her as to me,—So the blade I caught
With a sudden hand; and she leaned, and—well,
What a little wound, and the blood it brought

To crimson her bosom!—I set her there
In that carven chair; then turned the blade,—
With its glittering haft one savage glare
Of gold and jewels, wildly inlaid,—
To my breast, for the poisonous point rent bare.

A stain of blood on her bosom, and one
Black red o'er my heart.—You see, 't is good
To die so for love!... Does the sinking sun,
Through the dull vast west burst banked with blood?—
Or is it that life will at last have done?...

So you are her husband? and—well, you see,
You see she is dead ... But your face, how white!
—Is it with hate or with misery?—
What matters it now!—For, at last, the night
Falls and the silence covers me.

An Old Tale Re-told

From the terrace here, where the hills indent,
You can see the uttermost battlement
Of the castle there; the Cliffords' home;
Where the seasons go and the seasons come
And never a footstep else doth fall
Save the prowling fox's; the ancient hall
Echoes no voice save the owlet's call:
Its turret chambers are homes for the bat;
And its courts are tangled and wild to see;
And where in the cellar was once the rat,
The viper and toad move stealthily.
Long years have passed since the place was burned,
And he sailed to the wars in France and earned
The name that he bears of the bold and true
On his tomb. Long years, since my lord, Sir Hugh,
Lived; and I was his favorite page,
And the thing then happened; and he of an age
When a man will love and be loved again,
Or hie to the wars or a monastery,
Or toil till he conquer his heart's sore pain,
Or drink and forget it and finally bury.

I was his page. And often we fared
Through the Clare demesnes, in autumn, hawking;
If the Baron had known, how they would have glared
'Neath their bushy brows, those eyes of mocking!—
That last of the Strongbows, Richard, I mean—
And growling some six of his henchmen lean
To mount and after this Clifford and hang
With his crop-eared page to the nearest oak,
How he would have cursed us while he spoke!
For Clare and Clifford had ever a fang
In the other's side ... And I hear the clang
Of his rage in the hall when the hawker told—
If he told!—how we met on the autumn wold
His daughter, sweet Clara of Clare, the day
Her hooded tiercel its brails did burst,
And trailing its jesses, came flying our way—
An untrained haggard the falconer cursed
While he tried to secure:—as the eyas flew
Slant, low and heavily over us, Hugh,—
Who saw it coming, and had just then cast
His peregrine hawk at a heron quarry,—
In his saddle rising, so, as it passed,
By the jesses caught, and to her did carry,
Where she stood near the wood. Her face flushed rose
With the glad of the meeting. No two foes
Her eyes and my Lord's, I swear, who saw
'Twas love from the start. And I heard him speak
Some words; then he knelt; and the sombre shaw,
With the rust of the autumn waste and bleak,
Grew spring with her smile, as the hawk she took
On her lily wrist, where it pruned and shook
Its ragged wings. Then I saw him seize
The hand, that she reached to him, long and white,
As she smilingly bade him rise from his knees—

When he kissed its fingers, her eyes grew bright.
But her cheeks grew pallid when, lashing through
The woodland there, with a face a-flare
With the sting of the wind, and his gipsy hair
Flying, the falconer came, and two
Or three of the people of Castle Clare.
And the leaves of the autumn made a frame
For the picture there in the morning's flame.

What was said in that moment, I do not know,
That moment of meeting, between those lovers;
But whatever it was, 't was whispered low,
And soft as a leaf that swings and hovers,
A twinkling gold, when the leaves are yellow.
And her face with the joy was still aglow,
When down through the wood that burly fellow
Came with his frown, and made a pause
In the pulse of their words. My lord, Sir Hugh,
Stood with the soil on his knee. No cause
Had he, but his hanger he partly drew,
Then clapped it sharp in its sheath again,
And bowed to my Lady, and strode away;
And mounting his horse, with a swinging rein
Rode with a song in his heart all day.

He loved and was loved, I knew; for, look!
All other sports for the chase he forsook.
And strange that he never went to hawk,
Or hunt, but Clara would meet him there
In the Strongbow forest! I know the rock,
With its fern-filled moss, by the bramble lair,
Were oft and again he met—by chance,
Shall I say?—the daughter of Clare; as fair
Of face as a queen in an old romance,
Who waits with her sweet face pale; her hair
Night-deep; and eyes dove-gray with dreams;—
By the fountain-side where the statue gleams
And the moonbeam lolls in the lily white,—
For the knightly lover who comes at night.

Heigho! they ceased, those meetings; I wot,
Betrayed to the Baron by some of his crew
Of menials who followed and saw and knew.
For she loved too well to have once forgot
The time and the place of their trysting true.
"Why and when?" would ask Sir Hugh
In the labored letters he used to lock—
The lovers' post—in a coigne of that rock.
She used to answer, but now did not.
But nearing Yule, love got them again
A twilight tryst—through frowardness sure!—
They met. And that day was gray with rain,
Or snow: and the wind did ever endure
A long bleak moaning thorough the wood,
That chapped i' the cheek and smarted the blood;
And a brook in the forest went throb and throb,
And over it all was the wild-beast sob
Of the rushing boughs like a thing pursued.
And then it was that he learned how she,
(God's blood! how it makes my old limbs quiver
To think what a miserable tyrant he—
The Baron Richard—aye and ever
To his daughter was!) forsooth! must wed
With an eastern earl, a Lovell: to whom
(Would God o' his mercy had struck him dead!)
Clara of Clare when only a child,—
With a face like a flower, that blooms in the wild
Of the hills, and a soul like its soft perfume,—
Was given; to seal, or strengthen, some ties
Of power and wealth—say bartered, then,
Like the merest chattel. With tearful eyes
And trembling lips she spoke; and when
Her lover, the Clifford, had learned and heard,—
He'd have had her flee with him then, 'sdeath!
In spite of them all! Let her speak the word,
They would fly together; the Baron's men
Might follow, and if ... and he touched his sword,
It should answer! But she, while she seemed to stay,
With a hand on her bosom, her heart's quick breath,
Replied to his heat, "They would take and slay
Thee who art life of me!—No! not thus
Shall we fly! there's another way for us;
A way that is sure; an only way;
I have thought it out this many a day."—
The words that she spoke, how well I remember!
As well as the mood o' that day of December,
That bullied and blustered and seemed in league,
Like a spiteful shrew, with the wind and snow,
To drown the words of their sweet intrigue,
With the boom of the boughs tossed to and fro.
Her last words these, "By curfew sure,
On Christmas eve, at the postern door."

And we were there; with a led horse too;
Armed for a journey I hardly knew
Whither, but why, you well can guess.
For often he whispered a certain name,
The talisman of his happiness,
That warmed his blood like a yule-log's flame.
While we waited there, till its owner came,
We saw how the castle's baronial girth,
Like a giant's, loosed for reveling more,
Shone; and we heard the wassail and mirth
Where the mistletoe hung in the hearth's red roar,
And the holly brightened the weaponed wall
Of ancient oak in the banqueting hall.
And the spits, I trow, by the scullions turned
O'er the snoring logs, rich steamed and burned,
While the whole wild-boar and the deer were roasted,
And the half of an ox and the roe-buck haunches;
While tuns of ale, that the cellars boasted,
And casks of sack, were broached for paunches
Of vassals who reveled in stable and hall.
The song of the minstrel; the yeomen's quarrel
O'er the dice and the drink; and the huntsman's bawl
In the baying kennels, its hounds a-snarl
O'er the bones of the banquet; now loud, now low,
We could hear where we crouched in the drifting snow.

Was she long? did she come?... By the postern we
Like shadows waited. My lord, Sir Hugh,
Spoke, pointing a tower, "That casement, see?
When a stealthy light in its slit burns blue
And signals thrice slowly, thus—'t is she."
And close to his breast his gaberdine drew,
For the wind it whipped and the snow beat through.
Did she come?—We had waited an hour or twain,
When the taper flashed in the central pane,
And flourished three times and vanished so.
And under the arch of the postern's portal,
Holding the horses, we stood in the snow,
Stiff with the cold. Ah, me! immortal
Minutes we waited, breath-bated, and listened
Shivering there in the hiss of the gale:
The parapets whistled, the angles glistened,
And the night around seemed one black wail
Of death, whose ominous presence over
The stormy battlements seemed to hover.
Said my lord, Sir Hugh,—to himself he spoke,—
"She feels for the spring in the sliding panel
'Neath the arras, hid in the carven oak.
It opens. The stair, like a well's dark channel,
Yawns; and the draught makes her taper slope.
Wrapped deep in her mantle she stoops, now puts
One foot on the stair; now a listening pause
As nearer and nearer the mad search draws
Of the thwarted castle. No smallest hope
That they find her now that the panel shuts!...
If the wind, that howls like a tortured thing,
Would throttle itself with itself, then I
Might hear how her hurrying footsteps ring
Down the hollow ... there! 't is her fingers try
The postern's bolts that the rust makes cling."—
But ever some whim of the storm that shook
A clanging ring or a creaking hook
In buttress or wall. And we waited, numb
With the cold, till dawn—but she did not come.

I must tell you why and have done: 'T is said,
On the brink of the marriage she fled the side
Of the guests and the bridegroom there; she fled
With a mischievous laugh,—"I'll hide! I'll hide!
Seek! and be sure that you find!"—so led
A long search after her; but defied
All search for—a score and ten long years....

Well, the laughter of Yule was turned to tears
For them and for us. We saw the glare
Of torches that hurried from chamber to stair;
And we heard the castle re-echo her name,
But neither to them nor to us she came.
And that was the last of Clara of Clare.

That winter it was, a month thereafter,
That the home of the Cliffords, roof and rafter,
Burned.—I could swear 't was the Strongbow's doing,
Were I sure that he knew of the Clifford's wooing
His daughter; and so, by the Rood and Cross!
Had burned Hugh's home to avenge his loss.—
So over the channel to France with his King,
The Black Prince, sailed to the wars—to deaden
The ache of the mystery—Hugh that spring,
And fell at Poitiers; for his loss made leaden
His heart; and his life was a weary sadness,
So he flung it away in a moment's madness.
And the Baron died. And the bridegroom?—well,
Unlucky was he in truth!—to tell
Of him there is nothing. The Baron died,
The last of the Strongbows he—gramercy!
And the Clare estate with its wealth and pride
Devolved to the Bloets, Walter and Percy.

And years went by. And it happened that they
Ransacked the old castle; and so, one day,
In a lonesome tower uprummaged a chest,
From Flanders; of ebon, and wildly carved
All over with things: a sinister crest,
And evil faces, distorted and starved;
Fast-locked with a spring, which they forced and, lo!
When they opened it—Death, like a lady dressed,
Grinned up at their terror!—but no, not so!
A skeleton, jeweled and laced, and wreathed
With flowers of dust; and a miniver
Around it clasped, that the ruin sheathed
Of a once rich raiment of silk and fur.

I'd have given my life to hear him tell,
The courtly Clifford, how this befell!
He'd have known how it was: For, you see, in groping
For the secret spring of that panel, hoping
And fearing as nearer and nearer drew
The search of retainers, why, out she blew
The tell-tale taper; and, seeing this chest,
Would hide her a minute in it, mayhap,
Till the hurry had passed; but the death-lock, pressed
By the lid's great weight, closed fast with a snap,
Ere her heart was aware of the fiendish trap.

The Water Witch

See! the milk-white doe is wounded.
He will follow as it bounds
Through the woods. His horn has sounded.
Echoing, for his men and hounds.
But no answering bugle blew.
He has lost his retinue
For the shapely deer that bounded
Past him when his bow he drew.

Not one hound or huntsman follows.
Through the underbrush and moss
Goes the slot; and in the hollows
Of the hills, that he must cross,
He has lost it. He must fare
Over rocks where she-wolves lair;
Wood-pools where the wild-boar wallows;
So he leaves his good steed there.

Through his mind then flashed an olden
Legend told him by the monks:—
Of a girl, whose hair is golden,
Haunting fountains and the trunks
Of the woodland; who, they say,
Is a white doe all the day;
But when woods are night-enfolden
Turns into an evil fay.

Then the story oft his teacher
Told him; of a mountain lake
Demons dwell in; vague of feature,
Human-like, but each a snake,
She is queen of.—Did he hear
Laughter at his startled ear?
Or a bird? And now, what creature
Is it, or the wind, stirs near?

Fever of the hunt. This water,
Murmuring here, will cool his head.
Through the forest, fierce as slaughter,
Slants the sunset; ruby red
Are the drops that slip between
His cupped hands, while on the green,—
Like the couch of some wild daughter
Of the forest,—he doth lean.

But the runnel, bubbling, dripping,
Seems to bid him to be gone;
As with crystal words, and tripping
Steps of sparkle luring on.
Now a spirit in the rocks
Calls him; now a face that mocks,
From behind some bowlder slipping,
Laughs at him with lilied locks.

So he follows through the flowers,
Blue and gold, that blossom there;
Thridding twilight-haunted bowers
Where each ripple seems the bare
Beauty of white limbs that gleam
Rosy through the running stream;
Or bright-shaken hair, that showers
Starlight in the sunset's beam.

Till, far in the forest, sleeping
Like a luminous darkness, lay
A deep water, wherein, leaping,
Fell the Fountain of the Fay,
With a singing, sighing sound,
As of spirit things around,
Musically laughing, weeping
In the air and underground.

Not a ripple o'er it merried:
Like the round moon 'neath a cloud,
In its rocks the lake lay buried:
And strange creatures seemed to crowd
Its dark depths; vague limbs and eyes
To the surface seemed to rise
Spawn-like and, as formless, ferried
Through the water, shadow-wise.

Foliage things with human faces,
Demon-dreadful, pale and wild
As the forms the lightning traces
On the clouds the storm has piled,
Seeming now to draw to land,
Now away—Then up the strand
Comes a woman; and she places
On his arm a spray-white hand.

Ah! an untold world of sorrow
Were her eyes; her hair, a place
Whence the moon its gold might borrow;
And a dream of ice her face:
'Round her hair and throat in rims
Pearls of foam hung; and through whims
Of her robe, as breaks the morrow,
Shone the rose-light of her limbs.

Who could help but look with gladness
On such beauty? though within,
Deep within the beryl sadness
Of those eyes, the serpent sin
Coil?—When she hath placed her cheek
Chilly upon his, and weak,
With love longing and its madness,
Is his will grown, then she'll speak:

"Dost thou love me?"—"If surrender
Is to love thee, then I love."—
"Hast no fear then?"—"In the splendor
Of thy gaze who knows thereof?
Yet I fear—I fear to lose
Thee, thy love!"—"And thou dost choose
Aye to be my heart's defender?"—
"Take me. I am thine to use."

"Follow then. Ah, love, no lowly
Home I give thee."—With fixed eyes,
To the water's edge she slowly
Drew him.... And he did surmise
'Twas her lips on his, until
O'er his face the foam closed chill,
Whisp'ring, and the lake unholy
Rippled, rippled and was still.

At Nineveh

Written for my friend Walter S. Mathews.

There was a princess once, who loved the slave
Of an Assyrian king, her father; known
At Nineveh as Hadria; o'er whose grave
The sands of centuries have long been blown;
Yet sooner shall the night forget its stars
Than love her story:—How, unto his throne,
One day she came, where, with his warriors,
The king sat in the hall of audience,
'Mid pillared trophies of barbaric wars,
And, kneeling to him, asked, "O father, whence
Comes love and why?"—He, smiling on her, said,—
"O Hadria, love is of the gods, and hence
Divine, is only soul-interpreted.
But why love is, ah, child, we do not know,
Unless 'tis love that gives us life when dead."—
And then his daughter, with a face aglow
With all the love that clamored in her blood
Its sweet avowal, lifted arms of snow,
And, like Aurora's rose, before him stood,
Saying,—"Since love is of the powers above,
I love a slave, O Asshur! Let the good
The gods have giv'n be sanctioned. Speak not of
Dishonor and our line's ancestral dead!
They are imperial dust. I live and love."—
Black as black storm then rose the king and said,—
A lightning gesture at her standing there,—
"Enough! ho, Rhana, strike me off her head!"
And at the mandate, with his limbs half bare
A slave strode forth. Majestic was his form
As some young god's. He, gathering up her hair,
Wound it three times around his sinewy arm.
Then drew his sword. It for one moment shone
A semicircling light, and, dripping warm,
Lifting the head he stood before the throne.
Then cried the despot, "By the horn of Bel!
This was no child of mine!"—Like chiselled stone
Still stood the slave, a son of Israel.
Then striding towards the monarch, in his eye
The wrath of heaven and the hate of hell,
Shrieked, "Lust! I loved her! look on us and die!"
Swifter than fire clove him to the brain.
Then kissed the dead fair face of her held high,
And crying, "Judge, O God, between us twain!"
A thousand daggers in his heart, fell slain.

How They Brought Aid to Bryan's Station

During the siege of Bryan's Station, Kentucky, August 16, 1782, Nicholas Tomlinson and Thomas Bell, two inhabitants of the Fort, undertook to ride through the besieging Indian and Tory lines to Lexington, Ky., for aid. It happened also during this siege that the pioneer women of the Fort, when the water supply was exhausted, heroically carried water from a spring, at a considerable distance outside the palisades of the Station, to its inmates, under the very guns of the enemy.

With saddles girt and reins held fast,
Our rifles well in front, at last
Tom Bell and I were mounted.
The gate swung wide. We said, "Good-bye."
No time for talk had Bell and I.
One said, "God speed!" another, "Fly!"
Then out we galloped. Live or die,
We felt each moment counted.

The trace, the buffaloes had worn,
Stretched broad before us; and the corn
And cane through which it wended,
We knew for acres from the gate
Hid Indian guile and Tory hate.
We rode with hearts that seemed to wait
For instant death; and on our fate
The Station's fate depended.

No rifle cracked. No creature stirred,
As on towards Lexington we spurred
Unflinchingly together.
We reached the woods: no savage shout
Of all the wild Wyandotte rout
And Shawanese had yet rung out:
But now and then an Indian scout
Showed here a face and feather.

We rode expecting death each stride
From thicket depth or tree-trunk side,
Where some red foe might huddle—
For well we knew that renegade,
The blood-stained Girty, had not stayed
His fiends from us, who rode for aid,—
The dastard he who had betrayed
The pioneers of Ruddle.

And when an arrow grazed my hair
I did not turn, I did not spare
To spur as men spur warward:
A war-whoop rang this side a rock:
Then painted faces swarmed, to block
Our way, with brandished tomahawk
And rifle: then a shout, a shock—
And we again rode forward.

They followed; but 'twas no great while
Before from them by some long mile
Of forest we were sundered.
We galloped on. I'd lost my gun;
And Bell, whose girth had come undone,
Rode saddleless. The summer sun
Was up when into Lexington
Side unto side we thundered.

Too late. For Todd had left that day
With many men. Decoyed away
To Hoy's by some false story.
And we must after. Bryan's needs
Said, "On!" although our gallant steeds
Were blown—Enough! we must do deeds!
Must follow where our duty leads,
Be it to death or glory.

The way was wild and often barred
By trees and rocks; and it was hard
To keep our hearts from sinking;
But thoughts of those we'd left behind
Gave strength to muscle and to mind
To help us onward through the blind
Deep woods. And often we would find
Ourselves of loved ones thinking.

The hot stockade. No water left.
The fierce attack. All hope bereft
The powder-grimed defender.
The war-cry and the groan of pain.
All day the slanting arrow-rain
Of fire from the corn and cane.
The stern defence, but all in vain.
And then at last—surrender.

But not for Bryan's!—no! too well
Must they remember what befell
At Ruddle's and take warning.
So thought we as, all dust and sweat,
We rode with faces forward set,
And came to Station Boone while yet
An hour from noon ... We had not let
Our horses rest since morning.

Here Ellis met us with his men.
They did not stop nor tarry then.
That little band of lions;
But setting out at once with aid,
Right well you know how unafraid
They charged the Indian ambuscade,
And through a storm of bullets made
Their entrance into Bryan's.