O many such lands!—O my master, what ails thee?
Tell me again, for I may not remember.
—I prayed God give thee speech, and lo God hath given
it—
May God give me death! if I dream not this evil.
Said I not when thou knew'st it, all courage should fail
thee?
But me—my heart fails not, I am Pharamond as ever.
I shall seek and shall find—come help me, my fosterer!
—Yet if thou shouldst ask for a sign from that country
What have I to show thee—I plucked a blue milk-wort
From amidst of the field where she wandered
fair-footed—
It was gone when I wakened—and once in my wallet
I set some grey stones from the way through the forest—
These were gone when I wakened—and once as I wandered
A lock of white wool from a thorn-bush I gathered;
It was gone when I wakened—the name of that
country—
Nay, how should I know it?—but ever meseemeth
'Twas not in the southlands, for sharp in the sunset
And sunrise the air is, and whiles I have seen it
Amid white drift of snow—ah, look up, foster-father!
O woe, woe is me that I may not awaken!
Or else, art thou verily Pharamond my fosterling,
The Freed and the Freer, the Wise, the World's Wonder?
Why fainteth thy great heart? nay, Oliver, hearken,
E'en such as I am now these five years I have been.
Through five years of striving this dreamer and dotard
Has reaped glory from ruin, drawn peace from destruction.
Woe's me! wit hath failed me, and all the wise counsel
I was treasuring up down the wind is a-drifting—
Yet what wouldst thou have there if ever thou find it?
Are the gates of heaven there? is Death bound there and
helpless?
Nay, thou askest me this not as one without knowledge,
For thou know'st that my love in that land is abiding.
Yea—woe worth the while—and all wisdom hath failed
me:
Yet if thou wouldst tell me of her, I will hearken
Without mocking or mourning, if that may avail thee.
Lo, thy face is grown kind—Thou rememberest the even
When I first wore the crown after sore strife and mourning?
Who shall ever forget it? the dead face of thy father,
And thou in thy fight-battered armour above it,
Mid the passion of tears long held back by the battle;
And thy rent banner o'er thee and the ring of men mail-clad,
Victorious to-day, since their ruin but a spear-length
Was thrust away from them.—Son, think of thy glory
And e'en in such wise break the throng of these devils!
Five years are passed over since in the fresh dawning
On the field of that fight I lay wearied and sleepless
Till slumber came o'er me in the first of the sunrise;
Then as there lay my body rapt away was my spirit,
And a cold and thick mist for a while was about me,
And when that cleared away, lo, the mountain-walled country
'Neath the first of the sunrise in e'en such a spring-tide
As the spring-tide our horse-hoofs that yestereve trampled:
By the withy-wrought gate of a garden I found me
'Neath the goodly green boughs of the apple full-blossomed;
And fulfilled of great pleasure I was as I entered
The fair place of flowers, and wherefore I knew not.
Then lo, mid the birds' song a woman's voice singing.
Five years passed away, in the first of the sunrise.
God help us if God is!—for this man, I deemed him
More a glory of God made man for our helping
Than a man that should die: all the deeds he did surely,
Too great for a man's life, have undone the doer.
Thou art waiting, my fosterer, till
I tell of her singing
And the words that she sang there: time was when I knew
them;
But too much of strife is about us this morning,
And whiles I forget and whiles I remember.
But a night's dream undid him, and he died, and his
kingdom
By unheard-of deeds fashioned, was tumbled together,
By false men and fools to be fought for and ruined.
Such words shall my ghost see the chronicler writing
In the days that shall be:—ah—what wouldst thou, my
fosterling?
Knowest thou not how words fail us awaking
That we seemed to hear plain amid sleep and its sweetness?
Nay, strive not, my son, rest awhile and be silent;
Or sleep while I watch thee: full fair is the garden,
Perchance mid the flowers thy sweet dream may find thee,
And thou shalt have pleasure and peace for a little.—
(Aside) And my soul shall depart ere thou wak'st
peradventure.
Yea, thou deemest me mad: a dream
thou mayst call it,
But not such a dream as thou know'st of: nay, hearken!
For what manner of dream then is this that remembers
The words that she sang on that morning of glory;—
O love, set a word in my mouth for our meeting;
Cast thy sweet arms about me to stay my hearts beating!
Ah, thy silence, thy silence! nought shines on the darkness!
—O close-serried throng of the days that I see not!
Thus the worse that shall be, the bad that is, bettereth.
—Once more he is speechless mid evil dreams sunken.
Hold silence, love, speak not of
the sweet day departed;
Cling close to me, love, lest I waken sad-hearted!
Thou starest, my fosterer: what strange thing beholdst thou?
A great king, a strong man, that thou knewest a child once:
Pharamond the fair babe: Pharamond the warrior;
Pharamond the king, and which hast thou feared yet?
And why wilt thou fear then this Pharamond the lover?
Shall I fail of my love who failed not of my fame?
Nay, nay, I shall live for the last gain and greatest.
I know not—all counsel and wit is departed,
I wait for thy will; I will do it, my master.
Through the boughs of the garden I followed the singing
To a smooth space of sward: there the unknown desire
Of my soul I beheld,—wrought in shape of a woman.
O ye warders of Troy-walls, join hands through the
darkness,
Tell us tales of the Downfall, for we too are with you!
As my twin sister, young of years was she and slender,
Yellow blossoms of spring-tide her hands had been gathering,
But the gown-lap that held them had fallen adown
And had lain round her feet with the first of the singing;
Now her singing had ceased, though yet heaved her bosom
As with lips lightly parted and eyes of one seeking
She stood face to face with the Love that she knew not,
The love that she longed for and waited unwitting;
She moved not, I breathed not—till lo, a horn winded,
And she started, and o'er her came trouble and wonder,
Came pallor and trembling; came a strain at my heartstrings
As bodiless there I stretched hands toward her beauty,
And voiceless cried out, as the cold mist swept o'er me.
Then again clash of arms, and the morning watch calling,
And the long leaves and great twisted trunks of the chesnuts,
As I sprang to my feet and turned round to the trumpets
And gathering of spears and unfolding of banners
That first morn of my reign and my glory's beginning.
O well were we that tide though the world was against us.
Hearken yet!—through that whirlwind of danger and
battle,
Beaten back, struggling forward, we fought without blemish
On my banner spear-rent in the days of my father,
On my love of the land and the longing I cherished
For a tale to be told when I, laid in the minster,
Might hear it no more; was it easy of winning,
Our bread of those days? Yet as wild as the work was,
Unforgotten and sweet in my heart was that vision,
And her eyes and her lips and her fair body's fashion
Blest all times of rest, rent the battle asunder,
Turned ruin to laughter and death unto dreaming;
And again and thrice over again did I go there
Ere spring was grown winter: in the meadows I met her,
By the sheaves of the corn, by the down-falling apples,
Kind and calm, yea and glad, yet with eyes of one seeking.
—Ah the mouth of one waiting, ere all shall be
over!—
But at last in the winter-tide mid the dark forest
Side by side did we wend down the pass: the wind tangled
Mid the trunks and black boughs made wild music about us,
But her feet on the scant snow and the sound of her breathing
Made music much better: the wood thinned, and I saw her,
As we came to the brow of the pass; for the moon gleamed
Bitter cold in the cloudless black sky of the winter.
Then the world drew me back from my love, and departing
I saw her sweet serious look pass into terror
And her arms cast abroad—and lo, clashing of armour,
And a sword in my hand, and my mouth crying loud,
And the moon and cold steel in the doorway burst open
And thy doughty spear thrust through the throat of the foeman
My dazed eyes scarce saw—thou rememberest, my fosterer?
Yea, Theobald the Constable had watched but unduly;
We were taken unwares, and wild fleeing there was
O'er black rock and white snow—shall such times come again,
son?
Yea, full surely they shall; have thou courage, my
fosterer!—
Day came thronging on day, month thrust month aside,
Amid battle and strife and the murder of glory,
And still oft and oft to that land was I led
And still through all longing I young in Love's dealings,
Never called it a pain: though, the battle passed over,
The council determined, back again came my craving:
I knew not the pain, but I knew all the pleasure,
When now, as the clouds o'er my fortune were parting,
I felt myself waxing in might and in wisdom;
And no city welcomed the Freed and the Freer,
And no mighty army fell back before rumour
Of Pharamond's coming, but her heart bid me thither,
And the blithest and kindest of kingfolk ye knew me.
Then came the high tide of deliverance upon us,
When surely if we in the red field had fallen
The stocks and the stones would have risen to avenge us.
—Then waned my sweet vision midst glory's fulfilment,
And still with its waning, hot waxed my desire:
And did ye not note then that the glad-hearted Pharamond
Was grown a stern man, a fierce king, it may be?
Did ye deem it the growth of my manhood, the hardening
Of battle and murder and treason about me?
Nay, nay, it was love's pain, first named and first noted
When a long time went past, and I might not behold her.
—Thou rememberest a year agone now, when the legate
Of the Lord of the Waters brought here a broad letter
Full of prayers for good peace and our friendship
thenceforward—
—He who erst set a price on the lost head of
Pharamond—
How I bade him stand up on his feet and be merry,
Eat his meat by my side and drink out of my beaker,
In memory of days when my meat was but little
And my drink drunk in haste between saddle and straw.
But lo! midst of my triumph, as I noted the feigning
Of the last foeman humbled, and the hall fell a murmuring,
And blithely the horns blew, Be glad, spring
prevaileth,
—As I sat there and changed not, my soul saw a vision:
All folk faded away, and my love that I long for
Came with raiment a-rustling along the hall pavement,
Drawing near to the high-seat, with hands held out a little,
Till her hallowed eyes drew me a space into heaven,
And her lips moved to whisper, 'Come, love, for I weary!'
Then she turned and went from me, and I heard her feet
falling
On the floor of the hall, e'en as though it were empty
Of all folk but us twain in the hush of the dawning.
Then again, all was gone, and I sat there a smiling
On the faint-smiling legate, as the hall windows quivered
With the rain of the early night sweeping across them.
Nought slept I that night, yet I saw her without
sleeping:—
Betwixt midnight and morn of that summer-tide was I
Amidst of the lilies by her house-door to hearken
If perchance in her chamber she turned amid sleeping:
When lo, as the East 'gan to change, and stars faded
Were her feet on the stairs, and the door opened softly,
And she stood on the threshold with the eyes of one seeking,
And there, gathering the folds of her gown to her girdle,
Went forth through the garden and followed the highway,
All along the green valley, and I ever beside her,
Till the light of the low sun just risen was falling
On her feet in the first of the pass—and all faded.
Yet from her unto me had gone forth her intent,
And I saw her face set to the heart of that city,
And the quays where the ships of the outlanders come to,
And I said: She is seeking, and shall I not seek?
The sea is her prison wall; where is my prison?
—Yet I said: Here men praise me, perchance men may love
me
If I live long enough for my justice and mercy
To make them just and merciful—one who is master
Of many poor folk, a man pity moveth
Love hath dealt with in this wise, no minstrel nor dreamer.
The deeds that my hand might find for the doing
Did desire undo them these four years of fight?
And now time and fair peace in my heart have begotten
More desire and more pain, is the day of deeds done with?
Lo here for my part my bonds and my prison!—
Then with hands holding praise, yet with fierce heart belike
Did I turn to the people that I had delivered—
And the deeds of this year passed shall live peradventure!
But now came no solace of dreams in the night-tide
From that day thenceforward; yet oft in the council,
Mid the hearkening folk craving for justice or mercy,
Mid the righting of wrongs and the staying of ruin,
Mid the ruling a dull folk, who deemed all my kingship
A thing due and easy as the dawning and sunset
To the day that God made once to deal with no further—
—Mid all these a fair face, a sad face, could I
fashion,
And I said, She is seeking, and shall I not seek?
—Tell over the days of the year of hope's waning;
Tell over the hours of the weary days wearing:
Tell over the minutes of the hours of thy waking,
Then wonder he liveth who fails of his longing!
What wouldst thou have, son, wherein I might help thee?
Hearken yet:—for a long time no more I beheld her
Till a month agone now at the ending of Maytide;
And then in the first of the morning I found me
Fulfilled of all joy at the edge of the yew-wood;
Then lo, her gown's flutter in the fresh breeze of morning,
And slower and statelier than her wont was aforetime
And fairer of form toward the yew-wood she wended.
But woe's me! as she came and at last was beside me
With sobbing scarce ended her bosom was heaving,
Stained with tears was her face, and her mouth was yet
quivering
With torment of weeping held back for a season.
Then swiftly my spirit to the King's bed was wafted
While still toward the sea were her weary feet wending.
—Ah surely that day of all wrongs that I hearkened
Mine own wrongs seemed heaviest and hardest to bear—
Mine own wrongs and hers—till that past year of ruling
Seemed a crime and a folly. Night came, and I saw her
Stealing barefoot, bareheaded amidst of the tulips
Made grey by the moonlight: and a long time Love gave me
To gaze on her weeping—morn came, and I wakened—
I wakened and said: Through the World will I wander,
Till either I find her, or find the World empty.
Yea, son, wilt thou go? Ah thou knowest from of old time
My words might not stay thee from aught thou wert willing;
And e'en so it must be now. And yet hast thou asked me
To go with thee, son, if aught I might help thee?—
Ah me, if thy face might gladden a little
I should meet the world better and mock at its mocking:
If thou goest to find her, why then hath there fallen
This heaviness on thee? is thy heart waxen feeble?
O friend, I have seen her no more, and her mourning
Is alone and unhelped—yet to-night or to-morrow
Somewhat nigher will I be to her love and her longing.
Lo, to thee, friend, alone of all folk on the earth
These things have I told: for a true man I deem thee
Beyond all men call true; yea, a wise man moreover
And hardy and helpful; and I know thy heart surely
That thou holdest the world nought without me thy fosterling.
Come, leave all awhile! it may be as time weareth
With new life in our hands we shall wend us back hither.
Yea; triumph turns trouble, and all the world changeth,
Yet a good world it is since we twain are together.
Lo, have I not said it?—thou art kinder than all
men.
Cast about then, I pray thee, to find us a keel
Sailing who recketh whither, since the world is so wide.
Sure the northlands shall know of the blessings she bringeth,
And the southlands be singing of the tales that foretold her.
Well I wot of all chapmen—and
to-night weighs a dromond
Sailing west away first, and then to the southlands.
Since in such things I deal oft they know me, but know not
King Pharamond the Freed, since now first they sail hither.
So make me thy messenger in a fair-writ broad letter
And thyself make my scrivener, and this very night sail
we.—
O surely thy face now is brightening and blesseth me!
Peer through these boughs toward the bay and the haven,
And high masts thou shalt see, and white sails hanging ready.
Dost thou weep now, my darling, and are thy feet wandering
On the ways ever empty of what thou desirest?
Nay, nay, for thou know'st me, and many a night-tide
Hath Love led thee forth to a city unknown:
Thou hast paced through this palace from chamber to chamber
Till in dawn and stars' paling I have passed forth before
thee:
Thou hast seen thine own dwelling nor known how to name it:
Thine own dwelling that shall be when love is victorious.
Thou hast seen my sword glimmer amidst of the moonlight,
As we rode with hoofs muffled through waylaying murder.
Through the field of the dead hast thou fared to behold me,
Seen me waking and longing by the watch-fires' flicker;
Thou hast followed my banner amidst of the battle
And seen my face change to the man that they fear,
Yet found me not fearful nor turned from beholding:
Thou hast been at my triumphs, and heard the tale's ending
Of my wars, and my winning through days evil and weary:
For this eve hast thou waited, and wilt be peradventure
By the sea-strand to-night, for thou wottest full surely
That the word is gone forth, and the world is a-moving.
—Abide me, beloved! to-day and to-morrow
Shall be little words in the tale of our loving,
When the last morn ariseth, and thou and I meeting
From lips laid together tell tales of these marvels.
THE MUSIC
Enter before the curtain LOVE clad as a maker of Pictured Cloths.
That double life my faithful king has led
My hand has untwined, and old days are dead
As in the moon the sails run up the mast.
Yea, let this present mingle with the past,
And when ye see him next think a long tide
Of days are gone by; for the world is wide,
And if at last these hands, these lips shall meet,
What matter thorny ways and weary feet?
A faithful king, and now grown wise in love:
Yet from of old in many ways I move
The hearts that shall be mine: him by the hand
Have I led forth, and shown his eyes the land
Where dwells his love, and shown him what she is:
He has beheld the lips that he shall kiss,
The eyes his eyes shall soften, and the cheek
His voice shall change, the limbs he maketh weak:
—All this he hath as in a picture wrought—
But lo you, 'tis the seeker and the sought:
For her no marvels of the night I make,
Nor keep my dream-smiths' drowsy heads awake;
Only about her have I shed a glory
Whereby she waiteth trembling for a story
That she shall play in,—and 'tis not begun:
Therefore from rising sun to setting sun
There flit before her half-formed images
Of what I am, and in all things she sees
Something of mine: so single is her heart
Filled with the worship of one set apart
To be my priestess through all joy and sorrow;
So sad and sweet she waits the certain morrow.
—And yet sometimes, although her heart be strong,
You may well think I tarry over-long:
The lonely sweetness of desire grows pain,
The reverent life of longing void and vain:
Then are my dream-smiths mindful of my lore:
They weave a web of sighs and weeping sore,
Of languor, and of very helplessness,
Of restless wandering, lonely dumb distress,
Till like a live thing there she stands and goes,
Gazing at Pharamond through all her woes.
Then forth they fly, and spread the picture out
Before his eyes, and how then may he doubt
She knows his life, his deeds, and his desire?
How shall he tremble lest her heart should tire?
—It is not so; his danger and his war,
His days of triumph, and his years of care,
She knows them not—yet shall she know some day
The love that in his lonely longing lay.
What, Faithful—do I lie, that overshot
My dream-web is with that which happeneth not?
Nay, nay, believe it not!—love lies alone
In loving hearts like fire within the stone:
Then strikes my hand, and lo, the flax ablaze!
—Those tales of empty striving, and lost days
Folk tell of sometimes—never lit my fire
Such ruin as this; but Pride and Vain-desire,
My counterfeits and foes, have done the deed.
Beware, beloved! for they sow the weed
Where I the wheat: they meddle where I leave,
Take what I scorn, cast by what I receive,
Sunder my yoke, yoke that I would dissever,
Pull down the house my hands would build for ever.
Scene: In a Forest among the Hills of a Foreign Land.
KING PHARAMOND, MASTER OLIVER.
Stretch forth thine hand, foster-father, I know thee,
And fain would be sure I am yet in the world:
Where am I now, and what things have befallen?
Why am I so weary, and yet have wrought nothing?
Thou hast been sick, lord, but thy sickness abateth.
Thou art sad unto weeping: sorry rags are thy raiment,
For I see thee a little now: where am I lying?
On the sere leaves thou liest, lord, deep in the wild wood
What meaneth all this? was I not Pharamond,
A worker of great deeds after my father,
Freer of my land from murder and wrong,
Fain of folks' love, and no blencher in battle?
Yea, thou wert king and the kindest under heaven.
Was there not coming a Queen long desired,
From a land over sea, my life to fulfil?
Belike it was so—but thou leftst it untold of.
Why weepest thou more yet? O me, which are dreams,
Which are deeds of my life mid the things I remember?
Dost thou remember the great council chamber,
O my king, and the lords there gathered together
With drawn anxious faces one fair morning of summer,
And myself in their midst, who would move thee to speech?
A brawl I remember, some wordy debating,
Whether my love should be brought to behold me.
Sick was I at heart, little patience I had.
Hast thou memory yet left thee, how an hour thereafter
We twain lay together in the midst of the pleasance
'Neath the lime-trees, nigh the pear-tree, beholding the
conduit?
Fair things I remember of a long time thereafter—
Of thy love and thy faith and our gladness together
And the thing that we talked of, wilt thou tell me about it?
We twain were to wend through the wide world together
Seeking my love—O my heart! is she living?
God wot that she liveth as she hath lived ever.
Then soon was it midnight, and moonset, as we wended
Down to the ship, and the merchant-folks' babble.
The oily green waves in the harbour mouth glistened,
Windless midnight it was, but the great sweeps were run out,
As the cable came rattling mid rich bales on the deck,
And slow moved the black side that the ripple was lapping,
And I looked and beheld a great city behind us
By the last of the moon as the stars were a-brightening,
And Pharamond the Freed grew a tale of a singer,
With the land of his fathers and the fame he had toiled for.
Yet sweet was the scent of the sea-breeze arising;
And I felt a chain broken, a sickness put from me
As the sails drew, and merchant-folk, gathered together
On the poop or the prow, 'gan to move and begone,
Till at last 'neath the far-gazing eyes of the steersman
By the loitering watch thou and I were left lonely,
And we saw by the moon the white horses arising
Where beyond the last headland the ocean abode us,
Then came the fresh breeze and the sweep of the spray,
And the beating of ropes, and the empty sails' thunder,
As we shifted our course toward the west in the dawning;
Then I slept and I dreamed in the dark I was lying,
And I heard her sweet breath and her feet falling near me,
And the rustle of her raiment as she sought through the
darkness,
Sought, I knew not for what, till her arms clung about me
With a cry that was hers, that was mine as I wakened.
Yea, a sweet dream it was, as thy dreams were aforetime.
Nay not so, my fosterer: thy hope yet shall fail thee
If thou lookest to see me turned back from my folly,
Lamenting and mocking the life of my longing.
Many such have I had, dear dreams and deceitful,
When the soul slept a little from all but its search,
And lied to the body of bliss beyond telling;
Yea, waking had lied still but for life and its torment.
Not so were those dreams of the days of my kingship,
Slept my body—or died—but my soul was not
sleeping,
It knew that she touched not this body that trembled
At the thought of her body sore trembling to see me;
It lied of no bliss as desire swept it onward,
Who knows through what sundering space of its prison;
It saw, and it heard, and it hoped, and was lonely,
Had no doubt and no joy, but the hope that endureth.
—Woe's me I am weary: wend we forward to-morrow?
Yea, well it may be if thou wilt but be patient,
And rest thee a little, while time creepeth onward.
But tell me, has the fourth year gone far mid my sickness?
Nay, for seven days only didst thou lie here a-dying,
As full often I deemed: God be thanked it is over!
But rest thee a little, lord; gather strength for the striving.
Yea, for once again sleep meseems cometh to struggle
With the memory of times past: come tell thou, my fosterer,
Of the days we have fared through, that dimly before me
Are floating, as I look on thy face and its trouble.
Rememberest thou aught of the lands where we wended?
Yea, many a thing—as the moonlit warm evening
When we stayed by the trees in the Gold-bearing Land,
Nigh the gate of the city, where a minstrel was singing
That tale of the King and his fate, o'er the cradle
Foretold by the wise of the world; that a woman
Should win him to love and to woe, and despairing
In the last of his youth, the first days of his manhood.
I remember the evening; but clean gone is the story:
Amid deeds great and dreadful, should songs abide by me?
They shut the young king in a castle, the tale saith,
Where never came woman, and never should come,
And sadly he grew up and stored with all wisdom,
Not wishing for aught in his heart that he had not,
Till the time was come round to his twentieth birthday.
Then many fair gifts brought his people unto him,
Gold and gems, and rich cloths, and rare things and
dear-bought,
And a book fairly written brought a wise man among them,
Called the Praising of Prudence; wherein there was painted
The image of Prudence:—and that, what but a woman,
E'en she forsooth that the painter found fairest;—
Now surely thou mindest what needs must come after?
Yea, somewhat indeed I remember the misery
Told in that tale, but all mingled it is
With the manifold trouble that met us full often,
E'en we ourselves. Of nought else hast thou memory?
Of many such tales that the Southland folk told us,
Of many a dream by the sunlight and moonlight;
Of music that moved me, of hopes that my heart had;
The high days when my love and I held feast together.
—But what land is this, and how came we hither?
Nay, hast thou no memory of our troubles that were many?
How thou criedst out for Death and how near Death came to
thee?
How thou needs must dread war, thou the dreadful in battle?
Of the pest in the place where that tale was told to us;
And how we fled thence o'er the desert of horror?
How weary we wandered when we came to the mountains,
All dead but one man of those who went with us?
How we came to the sea of the west, and the city,
Whose Queen would have kept thee her slave and her lover,
And how we escaped by the fair woman's kindness,
Who loved thee, and cast her life by for thy welfare?
Of the waste of thy life when we sailed from the Southlands,
And the sea-thieves fell on us and sold us for servants
To that land of hard gems, where thy life's purchase seemed
Little better than mine, and we found to our sorrow
Whence came the crown's glitter, thy sign once of glory:
Then naked a king toiled in sharp rocky crannies,
And thy world's fear was grown but the task-master's whip,
And thy world's hope the dream in the short dead of night?
And hast thou forgotten how again we fled from it,
And that fight of despair in the boat on the river,
And the sea-strand again and white bellying sails;
And the sore drought and famine that on ship-board fell on
us,
Ere the sea was o'erpast, and we came scarcely living
To those keepers of sheep, the poor folk and the kind?
Dost thou mind not the merchants who brought us thence
northward,
And this land that we made in the twilight of dawning?
And the city herein where all kindness forsook us,
And our bitter bread sought we from house-door to house-door.
As the shadow of clouds o'er the
summer sea sailing
Is the memory of all now, and whiles I remember
And whiles I forget; and nought it availeth
Remembering, forgetting; for a sleep is upon me
That shall last a long while:—there thou liest, my
fosterer,
As thou lay'st a while since ere that twilight of dawning;
And I woke and looked forth, and the dark sea, long
changeless,
Was now at last barred by a dim wall that swallowed
The red shapeless moon, and the whole sea was rolling,
Unresting, unvaried, as grey as the void is,
Toward that wall 'gainst the heavens as though rest were behind
it.
Still onward we fared and the moon was forgotten,
And colder the sea grew and colder the heavens,
And blacker the wall grew, and grey, green-besprinkled,
And the sky seemed to breach it; and lo at the last
Many islands of mountains, and a city amongst them.
White clouds of the dawn, not moving yet waning,
Wreathed the high peaks about; and the sea beat for ever
'Gainst the green sloping hills and the black rocks and
beachless.
—Is this the same land that I saw in that dawning?
For sure if it is thou at least shalt hear tidings,
Though I die ere the dark: but for thee, O my fosterer,
Lying there by my side, I had deemed the old vision
Had drawn forth the soul from my body to see her.
And with joy and fear blended leapt the heart in my bosom,
And I cried, "The last land, love; O hast thou abided?"
But since then hath been turmoil, and sickness, and slumber,
And my soul hath been troubled with dreams that I knew not.
And such tangle is round me life fails me to rend it,
And the cold cloud of death rolleth onward to hide me.—
—O well am I hidden, who might not be happy!
I see not, I hear not, my head groweth heavy.