Poems — Volume 2

* * *

Gossips count her faults; they scour a narrow chamber
   Where there is no window, read not heaven or her.
‘When she was a tiny,’ one aged woman quavers,
   Plucks at my heart and leads me by the ear.
Faults she had once as she learnt to run and tumbled:
   Faults of feature some see, beauty not complete.
Yet, good gossips, beauty that makes holy
   Earth and air, may have faults from head to feet.

* * *

Hither she comes; she comes to me; she lingers,
   Deepens her brown eyebrows, while in new surprise
High rise the lashes in wonder of a stranger;
   Yet am I the light and living of her eyes.
Something friends have told her fills her heart to brimming,
   Nets her in her blushes, and wounds her, and tames.—
Sure of her haven, O like a dove alighting,
   Arms up, she dropped: our souls were in our names.

* * *

Soon will she lie like a white-frost sunrise.
   Yellow oats and brown wheat, barley pale as rye,
Long since your sheaves have yielded to the thresher,
   Felt the girdle loosened, seen the tresses fly.
Soon will she lie like a blood-red sunset.
   Swift with the to-morrow, green-winged Spring!
Sing from the South-west, bring her back the truants,
   Nightingale and swallow, song and dipping wing.

* * *

* * *

Could I find a place to be alone with heaven,
   I would speak my heart out: heaven is my need.
Every woodland tree is flushing like the dogwood,
   Flashing like the whitebeam, swaying like the reed.
Flushing like the dogwood crimson in October;
   Streaming like the flag-reed South-west blown;
Flashing as in gusts the sudden-lighted whitebeam:
   All seem to know what is for heaven alone.

Carols nature, counsel men.
Different notes as rook from wren
Hear we when our steps begin,
And the choice is cast within,
Where a robber raven’s tale
Urges passion’s nightingale.

Hark to the three.  Chimed they in one,
Life were music of the sun.
Liquid first, and then the caw,
Then the cry that knows not law.

I

As the birds do, so do we,
Bill our mate, and choose our tree.
Swift to building work addressed,
Any straw will help a nest.
Mates are warm, and this is truth,
Glad the young that come of youth.
They have bloom i’ the blood and sap
Chilling at no thunder-clap.
Man and woman on the thorn
Trust not Earth, and have her scorn.
They who in her lead confide,
Wither me if they spread not wide!
Look for aid to little things,
You will get them quick as wings,
Thick as feathers; would you feed,
Take the leap that springs the need.

Contemplate the rutted road:
Life is both a lure and goad.
Each to hold in measure just,
Trample appetite to dust.
Mark the fool and wanton spin:
Keep to harness as a skin.
Ere you follow nature’s lead,
Of her powers in you have heed;
Else a shiverer you will find
You have challenged humankind.
Mates are chosen marketwise:
Coolest bargainer best buys.
Leap not, nor let leap the heart:
Trot your track, and drag your cart.
So your end may be in wool,
Honoured, and with manger full.

III

O the rosy light! it fleets,
Dearer dying than all sweets.
That is life: it waves and goes;
Solely in that cherished Rose
Palpitates, or else ’tis death.
Call it love with all thy breath.
Love! it lingers: Love! it nears:
Love!  O Love! the Rose appears,
Blushful, magic, reddening air.
Now the choice is on thee: dare!
Mortal seems the touch, but makes
Immortal the hand that takes.
Feel what sea within thee shames
Of its force all other claims,
Drowns them.  Clasp! the world will be
Heavenly Rose to swelling sea.

I chanced upon an early walk to spy
A troop of children through an orchard gate:
   The boughs hung low, the grass was high;
   They had but to lift hands or wait
For fruits to fill them; fruits were all their sky.

They shouted, running on from tree to tree,
And played the game the wind plays, on and round.
   ’Twas visible invisible glee
   Pursuing; and a fountain’s sound
Of laughter spouted, pattering fresh on me.

I could have watched them till the daylight fled,
Their pretty bower made such a light of day.
   A small one tumbling sang, ‘Oh! head!’
   The rest to comfort her straightway
Seized on a branch and thumped down apples red.

The tiny creature flashing through green grass,
And laughing with her feet and eyes among
   Fresh apples, while a little lass
   Over as o’er breeze-ripples hung:
That sight I saw, and passed as aliens pass.

My footpath left the pleasant farms and lanes,
Soft cottage-smoke, straight cocks a-crow, gay flowers;
   Beyond the wheel-ruts of the wains,
   Across a heath I walked for hours,
And met its rival tenants, rays and rains.

Here, too, were many children, quick to scan
A new thing coming; swarthy cheeks, white teeth:
   In many-coloured rags they ran,
   Like iron runlets of the heath.
Dispersed lay broth-pot, sticks, and drinking-can.

Three girls, with shoulders like a boat at sea
Tipped sideways by the wave (their clothing slid
   From either ridge unequally),
   Lean, swift and voluble, bestrid
A starting-point, unfrocked to the bent knee.

They raced; their brothers yelled them on, and broke
In act to follow, but as one they snuffed
   Wood-fumes, and by the fire that spoke
   Of provender, its pale flame puffed,
And rolled athwart dwarf furzes grey-blue smoke.

Soon on the dark edge of a ruddier gleam,
The mother-pot perusing, all, stretched flat,
   Paused for its bubbling-up supreme:
   A dog upright in circle sat,
And oft his nose went with the flying steam.

I turned and looked on heaven awhile, where now
The moor-faced sunset broadened with red light;
   Threw high aloft a golden bough,
   And seemed the desert of the night
Far down with mellow orchards to endow.

I

On her great venture, Man,
Earth gazes while her fingers dint the breast
Which is his well of strength, his home of rest,
And fair to scan.

II

More aid than that embrace,
That nourishment, she cannot give: his heart
Involves his fate; and she who urged the start
Abides the race.

III

For he is in the lists
Contentious with the elements, whose dower
First sprang him; for swift vultures to devour
If he desists.

IV

His breath of instant thirst
Is warning of a creature matched with strife,
To meet it as a bride, or let fall life
On life’s accursed.

V

No longer forth he bounds
The lusty animal, afield to roam,
But peering in Earth’s entrails, where the gnome
Strange themes propounds.

By hunger sharply sped
To grasp at weapons ere he learns their use,
In each new ring he bears a giant’s thews,
An infant’s head.

VII

And ever that old task
Of reading what he is and whence he came,
Whither to go, finds wilder letters flame
Across her mask.

VIII

She hears his wailful prayer,
When now to the Invisible he raves
To rend him from her, now of his mother craves
Her calm, her care.

IX

The thing that shudders most
Within him is the burden of his cry.
Seen of his dread, she is to his blank eye
The eyeless Ghost.

X

Or sometimes she will seem
Heavenly, but her blush, soon wearing white,
Veils like a gorsebush in a web of blight,
With gold-buds dim.

XI

Once worshipped Prime of Powers,
She still was the Implacable: as a beast,
She struck him down and dragged him from the feast
She crowned with flowers.

Her pomp of glorious hues,
Her revelries of ripeness, her kind smile,
Her songs, her peeping faces, lure awhile
With symbol-clues.

XIII

The mystery she holds
For him, inveterately he strains to see,
And sight of his obtuseness is the key
Among those folds.

XIV

He may entreat, aspire,
He may despair, and she has never heed.
She drinking his warm sweat will soothe his need,
Not his desire.

XV

She prompts him to rejoice,
Yet scares him on the threshold with the shroud.
He deems her cherishing of her best-endowed
A wanton’s choice.

XVI

Albeit thereof he has found
Firm roadway between lustfulness and pain;
Has half transferred the battle to his brain,
From bloody ground;

XVII

He will not read her good,
Or wise, but with the passion Self obscures;
Through that old devil of the thousand lures,
Through that dense hood:

Through terror, through distrust;
The greed to touch, to view, to have, to live:
Through all that makes of him a sensitive
Abhorring dust.

XIX

Behold his wormy home!
And he the wind-whipped, anywhither wave
Crazily tumbled on a shingle-grave
To waste in foam.

XX

Therefore the wretch inclined
Afresh to the Invisible, who, he saith,
Can raise him high: with vows of living faith
For little signs.

XXI

Some signs he must demand,
Some proofs of slaughtered nature; some prized few,
To satisfy the senses it is true,
And in his hand,

XXII

This miracle which saves
Himself, himself doth from extinction clutch,
By virtue of his worth, contrasting much
With brutes and knaves.

XXIII

From dust, of him abhorred,
He would be snatched by Grace discovering worth.
‘Sever me from the hollowness of Earth!
Me take, dear Lord!’

She hears him.  Him she owes
For half her loveliness a love well won
By work that lights the shapeless and the dun,
Their common foes.

XXV

He builds the soaring spires,
That sing his soul in stone: of her he draws,
Though blind to her, by spelling at her laws,
Her purest fires.

XXVI

Through him hath she exchanged,
For the gold harvest-robes, the mural crown,
Her haggard quarry-features and thick frown
Where monsters ranged.

XXVII

And order, high discourse,
And decency, than which is life less dear,
She has of him: the lyre of language clear,
Love’s tongue and source.

XXVIII

She hears him, and can hear
With glory in his gains by work achieved:
With grief for grief that is the unperceived
In her so near.

XXIX

If he aloft for aid
Imploring storms, her essence is the spur.
His cry to heaven is a cry to her
He would evade.

Not elsewhere can he tend.
Those are her rules which bid him wash foul sins;
Those her revulsions from the skull that grins
To ape his end.

XXXI

And her desires are those
For happiness, for lastingness, for light.
’Tis she who kindles in his haunting night
The hoped dawn-rose.

XXXII

Fair fountains of the dark
Daily she waves him, that his inner dream
May clasp amid the glooms a springing beam,
A quivering lark:

XXIII

This life and her to know
For Spirit: with awakenedness of glee
To feel stern joy her origin: not he
The child of woe.

XXXIV

But that the senses still
Usurp the station of their issue mind,
He would have burst the chrysalis of the blind:
As yet he will;

XXXV

As yet he will, she prays,
Yet will when his distempered devil of Self;—
The glutton for her fruits, the wily elf
In shifting rays;—

That captain of the scorned;
The coveter of life in soul and shell,
The fratricide, the thief, the infidel,
The hoofed and horned;—

XXXVII

He singularly doomed
To what he execrates and writhes to shun;—
When fire has passed him vapour to the sun,
And sun relumed,

XXXVIII

Then shall the horrid pall
Be lifted, and a spirit nigh divine,
‘Live in thy offspring as I live in mine,’
Will hear her call.

XXXIX

Whence looks he on a land
Whereon his labour is a carven page;
And forth from heritage to heritage
Nought writ on sand.

XL

His fables of the Above,
And his gapped readings of the crown and sword,
The hell detested and the heaven adored,
The hate, the love,

XLI

The bright wing, the black hoof,
He shall peruse, from Reason not disjoined,
And never unfaith clamouring to be coined
To faith by proof.

She her just Lord may view,
Not he, her creature, till his soul has yearned
With all her gifts to reach the light discerned
Her spirit through.

XLIIII

Then in him time shall run
As in the hour that to young sunlight crows;
And—‘If thou hast good faith it can repose,’
She tells her son.

XLIV

Meanwhile on him, her chief
Expression, her great word of life, looks she;
Twi-minded of him, as the waxing tree,
Or dated leaf.

I

See the sweet women, friend, that lean beneath
The ever-falling fountain of green leaves
Round the white bending stem, and like a wreath
Of our most blushful flower shine trembling through,
To teach philosophers the thirst of thieves:
   Is one for me? is one for you?

II

—Fair sirs, we give you welcome, yield you place,
And you shall choose among us which you will,
Without the idle pastime of the chase,
If to this treaty you can well agree:
To wed our cause, and its high task fulfil.
   He who’s for us, for him are we!

III

—Most gracious ladies, nigh when light has birth,
A troop of maids, brown as burnt heather-bells,
And rich with life as moss-roots breathe of earth
In the first plucking of them, past us flew
To labour, singing rustic ritornells:
   Had they a cause? are they of you?

—Sirs, they are as unthinking armies are
To thoughtful leaders, and our cause is theirs.
When they know men they know the state of war:
But now they dream like sunlight on a sea,
And deem you hold the half of happy pairs.
   He who’s for us, for him are we!

V

—Ladies, I listened to a ring of dames;
Judicial in the robe and wig; secure
As venerated portraits in their frames;
And they denounced some insurrection new
Against sound laws which keep you good and pure.
   Are you of them? are they of you?

VI

—Sirs, they are of us, as their dress denotes,
And by as much: let them together chime:
It is an ancient bell within their throats,
Pulled by an aged ringer; with what glee
Befits the yellow yesterdays of time.
   He who’s for us, for him are we!

VII

—Sweet ladies, you with beauty, you with wit;
Dowered of all favours and all blessed things
Whereat the ruddy torch of Love is lit;
Wherefore this vain and outworn strife renew,
Which stays the tide no more than eddy-rings?
   Who is for love must be for you.

—The manners of the market, honest sirs,
’Tis hard to quit when you behold the wares.
You flatter us, or perchance our milliners
You flatter; so this vain and outworn She
May still be the charmed snake to your soft airs!
   A higher lord than Love claim we.

IX

—One day, dear lady, missing the broad track,
I came on a wood’s border, by a mead,
Where golden May ran up to moted black:
And there I saw Queen Beauty hold review,
With Love before her throne in act to plead.
   Take him for me, take her for you.

X

—Ingenious gentleman, the tale is known.
Love pleaded sweetly: Beauty would not melt:
She would not melt: he turned in wrath: her throne
The shadow of his back froze witheringly,
And sobbing at his feet Queen Beauty knelt.
   O not such slaves of Love are we!

XI

—Love, lady, like the star above that lance
Of radiance flung by sunset on ridged cloud,
Sad as the last line of a brave romance!—
Young Love hung dim, yet quivering round him threw
Beams of fresh fire, while Beauty waned and bowed.
   Scorn Love, and dread the doom for you.

—Called she not for her mirror, sir?  Forth ran
Her women: I am lost, she cried, when lo,
Love in the form of an admiring man
Once more in adoration bent the knee,
And brought the faded Pagan to full blow:
   For which her throne she gave: not we!

XIII

—My version, madam, runs not to that end.
A certain madness of an hour half past,
Caught her like fever; her just lord no friend
She fancied; aimed beyond beauty, and thence grew
The prim acerbity, sweet Love’s outcast.
   Great heaven ward off that stroke from you!

XIV

—Your prayer to heaven, good sir, is generous:
How generous likewise that you do not name
Offended nature!  She from all of us
Couched idle underneath our showering tree,
May quite withhold her most destructive flame;
   And then what woeful women we!

XV

—Quite, could not be, fair lady; yet your youth
May run to drought in visionary schemes:
And a late waking to perceive the truth,
When day falls shrouding her supreme adieu,
Shows darker wastes than unaccomplished dreams:
   And that may be in store for you.

—O sir, the truth, the truth! is’t in the skies,
Or in the grass, or in this heart of ours?
But O the truth, the truth! the many eyes
That look on it! the diverse things they see,
According to their thirst for fruit or flowers!
   Pass on: it is the truth seek we.

XVII

—Lady, there is a truth of settled laws
That down the past burns like a great watch-fire.
Let youth hail changeful mornings; but your cause,
Whetting its edge to cut the race in two,
Is felony: you forfeit the bright lyre,
   Much honour and much glory you!

XVIII

—Sir, was it glory, was it honour, pride,
And not as cat and serpent and poor slave,
Wherewith we walked in union by your side?
Spare to false womanliness her delicacy,
Or bid true manliness give ear, we crave:
   In our defence thus chained are we.

XIX

—Yours, madam, were the privileges of life
Proper to man’s ideal; you were the mark
Of action, and the banner in the strife:
Yea, of your very weakness once you drew
The strength that sounds the wells, outflies the lark:
   Wrapped in a robe of flame were you!

—Your friend looks thoughtful.  Sir, when we were chill,
You clothed us warmly; all in honour! when
We starved you fed us; all in honour still:
Oh, all in honour, ultra-honourably!
Deep is the gratitude we owe to men,
   For privileged indeed were we!

XXI

—You cite exceptions, madam, that are sad,
But come in the red struggle of our growth.
Alas, that I should have to say it! bad
Is two-sexed upon earth: this which you do,
Shows animal impatience, mental sloth:
   Man monstrous! pining seraphs you!

XXII

—I fain would ask your friend . . . but I will ask
You, sir, how if in place of numbers vague,
Your sad exceptions were to break that mask
They wear for your cool mind historically,
And blaze like black lists of a present plague?
   But in that light behold them we.

XXIII

—Your spirit breathes a mist upon our world,
Lady, and like a rain to pierce the roof
And drench the bed where toil-tossed man lies curled
In his hard-earned oblivion!  You are few,
Scattered, ill-counselled, blinded: for a proof,
   I have lived, and have known none like you.

—We may be blind to men, sir: we embrace
A future now beyond the fowler’s nets.
Though few, we hold a promise for the race
That was not at our rising: you are free
To win brave mates; you lose but marionnettes.
   He who’s for us, for him are we.

XXV

—Ah! madam, were they puppets who withstood
Youth’s cravings for adventure to preserve
The dedicated ways of womanhood?
The light which leads us from the paths of rue,
That light above us, never seen to swerve,
   Should be the home-lamp trimmed by you.

XXVI

—Ah! sir, our worshipped posture we perchance
Shall not abandon, though we see not how,
Being to that lamp-post fixed, we may advance
Beside our lords in any real degree,
Unless we move: and to advance is now
   A sovereign need, think more than we.

XXVII

—So push you out of harbour in small craft,
With little seamanship; and comes a gale,
The world will laugh, the world has often laughed,
Lady, to see how bold when skies are blue,
When black winds churn the deeps how panic-pale,
   How swift to the old nest fly you!

—What thinks your friend, kind sir?  We have escaped
But partly that old half-tamed wild beast’s paw
Whereunder woman, the weak thing, was shaped:
Men, too, have known the cramping enemy
In grim brute force, whom force of brain shall awe:
   Him our deliverer, await we!

XXIX

—Delusions are with eloquence endowed,
And yours might pluck an angel from the spheres
To play in this revolt whereto you are vowed,
Deliverer, lady! but like summer dew
O’er fields that crack for rain your friends drop tears,
   Who see the awakening for you.

XXX

—Is he our friend, there silent? he weeps not.
O sir, delusion mounting like a sun
On a mind blank as the white wife of Lot,
Giving it warmth and movement! if this be
Delusion, think of what thereby was won
   For men, and dream of what win we.

XXXI

—Lady, the destiny of minor powers,
Who would recast us, is but to convulse:
You enter on a strife that frets and sours;
You can but win sick disappointment’s hue;
And simply an accelerated pulse,
   Some tonic you have drunk moves you.

—Thinks your friend so?  Good sir, your wit is bright;
But wit that strives to speak the popular voice,
Puts on its nightcap and puts out its light.
Curfew, would seem your conqueror’s decree
To women likewise: and we have no choice
   Save darkness or rebellion, we!

XXXIII

—A plain safe intermediate way is cleft
By reason foiling passion: you that rave
Of mad alternatives to right and left
Echo the tempter, madam: and ’tis due
Unto your sex to shun it as the grave,
   This later apple offered you.

XXXIV

—This apple is not ripe, it is not sweet;
Nor rosy, sir, nor golden: eye and mouth
Are little wooed by it; yet we would eat.
We are somewhat tired of Eden, is our plea.
We have thirsted long; this apple suits our drouth:
   ’Tis good for men to halve, think we.

XXXV

—But say, what seek you, madam?  ’Tis enough
That you should have dominion o’er the springs
Domestic and man’s heart: those ways, how rough,
How vile, outside the stately avenue
Where you walk sheltered by your angel’s wings,
   Are happily unknown to you.

—We hear women’s shrieks on them.  We like your phrase,
Dominion domestic!  And that roar,
‘What seek you?’ is of tyrants in all days.
Sir, get you something of our purity
And we will of your strength: we ask no more.
   That is the sum of what seek we.

XXXVII

—O for an image, madam, in one word,
To show you as the lightning night reveals,
Your error and your perils: you have erred
In mind only, and the perils that ensue
Swift heels may soften; wherefore to swift heels
   Address your hopes of safety you!

XXXVIII

—To err in mind, sir . . . your friend smiles: he may!
To err in mind, if err in mind we can,
Is grievous error you do well to stay.
But O how different from reality
Men’s fiction is! how like you in the plan,
   Is woman, knew you her as we!

XXXIX

—Look, lady, where yon river winds its line
Toward sunset, and receives on breast and face
The splendour of fair life: to be divine,
’Tis nature bids you be to nature true,
Flowing with beauty, lending earth your grace,
   Reflecting heaven in clearness you.

—Sir, you speak well: your friend no word vouchsafes.
To flow with beauty, breeding fools and worse,
Cowards and worse: at such fair life she chafes,
Who is not wholly of the nursery,
Nor of your schools: we share the primal curse;
   Together shake it off, say we!

XLI

—Hear, then, my friend, madam!  Tongue-restrained he stands
Till words are thoughts, and thoughts, like swords enriched
With traceries of the artificer’s hands,
Are fire-proved steel to cut, fair flowers to view.—
Do I hear him?  Oh, he is bewitched, bewitched!
   Heed him not!  Traitress beauties you!

XLII

—We have won a champion, sisters, and a sage!
—Ladies, you win a guest to a good feast!
—Sir spokesman, sneers are weakness veiling rage.
—Of weakness, and wise men, you have the key.
—Then are there fresher mornings mounting East
   Than ever yet have dawned, sing we!

XLIII

—False ends as false began, madam, be sure!
—What lure there is the pure cause purifies!
—Who purifies the victim of the lure?
—That soul which bids us our high light pursue.
—Some heights are measured down: the wary wise
   Shun Reason in the masque with you!

—Sir, for the friend you bring us, take our thanks.
Yes, Beauty was of old this barren goal;
A thing with claws; and brute-like in her pranks!
But could she give more loyal guarantee
Than wooing Wisdom, that in her a soul
   Has risen?  Adieu: content are we!

XLV

Those ladies led their captive to the flood’s
Green edge.  He floating with them seemed the most
Fool-flushed old noddy ever crowned with buds.
Happier than I!  Then, why not wiser too?
For he that lives with Beauty, he may boast
   His comrade over me and you.

XLVI

Have women nursed some dream since Helen sailed
Over the sea of blood the blushing star,
That beauty, whom frail man as Goddess hailed,
When not possessing her (for such is he!),
Might in a wondering season seen afar,
   Be tamed to say not ‘I,’ but ‘we’?

XLVII

And shall they make of Beauty their estate,
The fortress and the weapon of their sex?
Shall she in her frost-brilliancy dictate,
More queenly than of old, how we must woo,
Ere she will melt?  The halter’s on our necks,
   Kick as it likes us, I and you.

Certain it is, if Beauty has disdained
Her ancient conquests, with an aim thus high:
If this, if that, if more, the fight is gained.
But can she keep her followers without fee?
Yet ah! to hear anew those ladies cry,
   He who’s for us, for him are we!

I

Melpomene among her livid people,
Ere stroke of lyre, upon Thaleia looks,
Warned by old contests that one museful ripple
Along those lips of rose with tendril hooks
Forebodes disturbance in the springs of pathos,
Perchance may change of masks midway demand,
Albeit the man rise mountainous as Athos,
The woman wild as Cape Leucadia stand.

II

For this the Comic Muse exacts of creatures
Appealing to the fount of tears: that they
Strive never to outleap our human features,
And do Right Reason’s ordinance obey,
In peril of the hum to laughter nighest.
But prove they under stress of action’s fire
Nobleness, to that test of Reason highest,
She bows: she waves them for the loftier lyre.

I

I

In middle age an evil thing
   Befell Archduchess Anne:
She looked outside her wedding-ring
   Upon a princely man.

II

Count Louis was for horse and arms;
   And if its beacon waved,
For love; but ladies had not charms
   To match a danger braved.

III

On battlefields he was the bow
   Bestrung to fly the shaft:
In idle hours his heart would flow
   As winds on currents waft.

IV

His blood was of those warrior tribes
   That streamed from morning’s fire,
Whom now with traps and now with bribes
   The wily Council wire.

V

Archduchess Anne the Council ruled,
   Count Louis his great dame;
And woe to both when one had cooled!
   Little was she to blame.

Among her chiefs who spun their plots,
   Old Kraken stood the sword:
As sharp his wits for cutting knots
   Of babble he abhorred.

VII

He reverenced her name and line,
   Nor other merit had
Save soldierwise to wait her sign,
   And do the deed she bade.

VIII

He saw her hand jump at her side
   Ere royally she smiled
On Louis and his fair young bride
   Where courtly ranks defiled.

IX

That was a moment when a shock
   Through the procession ran,
And thrilled the plumes, and stayed the clock,
   Yet smiled Archduchess Anne.

X

No touch gave she to hound in leash,
   No wink to sword in sheath:
She seemed a woman scarce of flesh;
   Above it, or beneath.

Old Kraken spied with kennelled snarl,
   His Lady deemed disgraced.
He footed as on burning marl,
   When out of Hall he paced.

XII

’Twas seen he hammered striding legs,
   And stopped, and strode again.
Now Vengeance has a brood of eggs,
   But Patience must be hen.

XIII

Too slow are they for wrath to hatch,
   Too hot for time to rear.
Old Kraken kept unwinding watch;
   He marked his day appear.

XIV

He neighed a laugh, though moods were rough
   With standards in revolt:
His nostrils took the news for snuff,
   His smacking lips for salt.

XV

Count Louis’ wavy cock’s plumes led
   His troops of black-haired manes,
A rebel; and old Kraken sped
   To front him on the plains.

Then camp opposed to camp did they
   Fret earth with panther claws
For signal of a bloody day,
   Each reading from the Laws.

XVII

‘Forefend it, heaven!’ Count Louis cried,
   ‘And let the righteous plead:
My country is a willing bride,
   Was never slave decreed.

XVIII

‘Not we for thirst of blood appeal
   To sword and slaughter curst;
We have God’s blessing on our steel,
   Do we our pleading first.’

XIX

Count Louis, soul of chivalry,
   Put trust in plighted word;
By starlight on the broad brown lea,
   To bar the strife he spurred.

XX

Across his breast a crimson spot,
   That in a quiver glowed,
The ruddy crested camp-fires shot,
   As he to darkness rode.

He rode while omens called, beware
   Old Kraken’s pledge of faith!
A smile and waving hand in air,
   And outward flew the wraith.

XXII

Before pale morn had mixed with gold,
   His army roared, and chilled,
As men who have a woe foretold,
   And see it red fulfilled.

XXIII

Away and to his young wife speed,
   And say that Honour’s dead!
Another word she will not need
   To bow a widow’s head.

XXIV

Old Kraken roped his white moustache
   Right, left, for savage glee:
—To swing him in his soldier’s sash
   Were kind for such as he!

XXV

Old Kraken’s look hard Winter wears
   When sweeps the wild snow-blast:
He had the hug of Arctic bears
   For captives he held fast.

I

Archduchess Anne sat carved in frost,
   Shut off from priest and spouse.
Her lips were locked, her arms were crossed,
   Her eyes were in her brows.

II

One hand enclosed a paper scroll,
   Held as a strangled asp.
So may we see the woman’s soul
   In her dire tempter’s grasp.

III

Along that scroll Count Louis’ doom
   Throbbed till the letters flamed.
She saw him in his scornful bloom,
   She saw him chained and shamed.

IV

Around that scroll Count Louis’ fate
   Was acted to her stare,
And hate in love and love in hate
   Fought fell to smite or spare.

Between the day that struck her old,
   And this black star of days,
Her heart swung like a storm-bell tolled
   Above a town ablaze.

VI

His beauty pressed to intercede,
   His beauty served him ill.
—Not Vengeance, ’tis his rebel’s deed,
   ’Tis Justice, not our will!

VII

Yet who had sprung to life’s full force
   A breast that loveless dried?
But who had sapped it at the source,
   With scarlet to her pride!

VIII

He brought her waning heart as ’twere
   New message from the skies.
And he betrayed, and left on her
   The burden of their sighs.

IX

In floods her tender memories poured;
   They foamed with waves of spite:
She crushed them, high her heart outsoared,
   To keep her mind alight.

—The crawling creature, called in scorn
   A woman!—with this pen
We sign a paper that may warn
   His crowing fellowmen.

XI

—We read them lesson of a power
   They slight who do us wrong.
That bitter hour this bitter hour
   Provokes; by turns the strong!

XII

—That we were woman once is known:
   That we are Justice now,
Above our sex, above the throne,
   Men quaking shall avow.

XIII

Archduchess Anne ascending flew,
   Her heart outsoared, but felt
The demon of her sex pursue,
   Incensing or to melt.

XIV

Those counterfloods below at leap
   Still in her breast blew storm,
And farther up the heavenly steep
   Wrestled in angels’ form.

To disentangle one clear wish
   Not of her sex, she sought;
And womanish to womanish
   Discerned in lighted thought.

XVI

With Louis’ chance it went not well
   When at herself she raged;
A woman, of whom men might tell
   She doted, crazed and aged.

XVII

Or else enamoured of a sweet
   Withdrawn, a vengeful crone!
And say, what figure at her feet
   Is this that utters moan?

XVIII

The Countess Louis from her head
   Drew veil: ‘Great Lady, hear!
My husband deems you Justice dread,
   I know you Mercy dear.

XIX

‘His error upon him may fall;
   He will not breathe a nay.
I am his helpless mate in all,
   Except for grace to pray.

‘Perchance on me his choice inclined,
   To give his House an heir:
I had not marriage with his mind,
   His counsel could not share.

XXI

‘I brought no portion for his weal
   But this one instinct true,
Which bids me in my weakness kneel,
   Archduchess Anne, to you.’

XXII

The frowning Lady uttered, ‘Forth!’
   Her look forbade delay:
‘It is not mine to weigh your worth;
   Your husband’s others weigh.

XXIII

‘Hence with the woman in your speech,’
   For nothing it avails
In woman’s fashion to beseech
   Where Justice holds the scales.’

XXIV

Then bent and went the lady wan,
   Whose girlishness made grey
The thoughts that through Archduchess Anne
   Shattered like stormy spray.

Long sat she there, as flame that strives
   To hold on beating wind:
—His wife must be the fool of wives,
   Or cunningly designed!

XXVI

She sat until the tempest-pitch
   In her torn bosom fell;
—His wife must be a subtle witch
   Or else God loves her well!

I

Old Kraken read a missive penned
   By his great Lady’s hand.
Her condescension called him friend,
   To raise the crest she fanned.

II

Swiftly to where he lay encamped
   It flew, yet breathed aloof
From woman’s feeling, and he stamped
   A heel more like a hoof.

III

She wrote of Mercy: ‘She was loth
   Too hard to goad a foe.’
He stamped, as when men drive an oath
   Devils transcribe below.

IV

She wrote: ‘We have him half by theft.’
   His wrinkles glistened keen:
And see the Winter storm-cloud cleft
   To lurid skies between!

When read old Kraken: ‘Christ our Guide,’
   His eyes were spikes of spar:
And see the white snow-storm divide
   About an icy star!

VI

‘She trusted him to understand,’
   She wrote, and further prayed
That policy might rule the land.
   Old Kraken’s laughter neighed.

VII

Her words he took; her nods and winks
   Treated as woman’s fog.
The man-dog for his mistress thinks,
   Not less her faithful dog.

VIII

She hugged a cloak old Kraken ripped;
   Disguise to him he loathed.
—Your mercy, madam, shows you stripped,
   While mine will keep you clothed.

IX

A rough ill-soldered scar in haste
   He rubbed on his cheek-bone.
—Our policy the man shall taste;
   Our mercy shall be shown.

‘Count Louis, honour to your race
   Decrees the Council-hall:
You ’scape the rope by special grace,
   And like a soldier fall.’

XI

—I am a man of many sins,
   Who for one virtue die,
Count Louis said.—They play at shins,
   Who kick, was the reply.

XII

Uprose the day of crimson sight,
   The day without a God.
At morn the hero said Good-night:
   See there that stain on sod!

XIII

At morn the Countess Louis heard
   Young light sing in the lark.
Ere eve it was that other bird,
   Which brings the starless dark.

XIV

To heaven she vowed herself, and yearned
   Beside her lord to lie.
Archduchess Anne on Kraken turned,
   All white as a dead eye.

If I could kill thee! shrieked her look:
   If lightning sprang from Will!
An oaken head old Kraken shook,
   And she might thank or kill.

XVI

The pride that fenced her heart in mail
   By mortal pain was torn.
Forth from her bosom leaped a wail,
   As of a babe new-born.

XVII

She clad herself in courtly use,
   And one who heard them prate
Had said they differed upon views
   Where statecraft raised debate.

XVIII

The wretch detested must she trust,
   The servant master own:
Confide to godless cause so just,
   And for God’s blessing moan.

XIX

Austerely she her heart kept down,
   Her woman’s tongue was mute
When voice of People, voice of Crown,
   In cannon held dispute.

The Crown on seas of blood, like swine,
   Swam forefoot at the throat:
It drank of its dear veins for wine,
   Enough if it might float!

XXI

It sank with piteous yelp, resurged
   Electrical with fear.
O had she on old Kraken urged
   Her word of mercy clear!

XXII

O had they with Count Louis been
   Accordant in his plea!
Cursed are the women vowed to screen
   A heart that all can see!

XXIII

The godless drove unto a goal
   Was worse than vile defeat.
Did vengeance prick Count Louis’ soul
   They dressed him luscious meat.

XXIV

Worms will the faithless find their lies
   In the close treasure-chest.
Without a God no day can rise,
   Though it should slay our best.

The Crown it furled a draggled flag,
   It sheathed a broken blade.
Behold its triumph in the hag
   That lives with looks decayed!

XXVI

And lo, the man of oaken head,
   Of soldier’s honour bare,
He fled his land, but most he fled
   His Lady’s frigid stare.

XXVII

Judged by the issue we discern
   God’s blessing, and the bane.
Count Louis’ dust would fill an urn,
   His deeds are waving grain.

XXVIII

And she that helped to slay, yet bade
   To spare the fated man,
Great were her errors, but she had
   Great heart, Archduchess Anne.

I

Queen Theodolind has built
In the earth a furnace-bed:
There the Traitor Nail that spilt
Blood of the anointed Head,
Red of heat, resolves in shame:
White of heat, awakes to flame.
   Beat, beat! white of heat,
   Red of heat, beat, beat!

II

Mark the skeleton of fire
Lightening from its thunder-roof:
So comes this that saw expire
Him we love, for our behoof!
Red of heat, O white of heat,
This from off the Cross we greet.

III

Brown-cowled hammermen around
Nerve their naked arms to strike
Death with Resurrection crowned,
Each upon that cruel spike.
Red of heat the furnace leaps,
White of heat transfigured sleeps.

Hard against the furnace core
Holds the Queen her streaming eyes:
Lo! that thing of piteous gore
In the lap of radiance lies,
Red of heat, as when He takes,
White of heat, whom earth forsakes.

V

Forth with it, and crushing ring
Iron hymns, for men to hear
Echoes of the deeds that sting
Earth into its graves, and fear!
Red of heat, He maketh thus,
White of heat, a crown of us.

VI

This that killed Thee, kissed Thee, Lord!
Touched Thee, and we touch it: dear,
Dark it is; adored, abhorred:
Vilest, yet most sainted here.
Red of heat, O white of heat,
In it hell and heaven meet.

VII

I behold our morning day
When they chased Him out with rods
Up to where this traitor lay
Thirsting; and the blood was God’s!
Red of heat, it shall be pressed,
White of heat, once on my breast!

Quick! the reptile in me shrieks,
Not the soul.  Again; the Cross
Burn there.  Oh! this pain it wreaks
Rapture is: pain is not loss.
Red of heat, the tooth of Death,
White of heat, has caught my breath.

IX

Brand me, bite me, bitter thing!
Thus He felt, and thus I am
One with Him in suffering,
One with Him in bliss, the Lamb.
Red of heat, O white of heat,
Thus is bitterness made sweet.

X

Now am I, who bear that stamp
Scorched in me, the living sign
Sole on earth—the lighted lamp
Of the dreadful Day divine.
White of heat, beat on it fast!
Red of heat, its shape has passed.

XI

Out in angry sparks they fly,
They that sentenced Him to bleed:
Pontius and his troop: they die,
Damned for ever for the deed!
White of heat in vain they soar:
Red of heat they strew the floor.

Fury on it! have its debt!
Thunder on the Hill accurst,
Golgotha, be ye! and sweat
Blood, and thirst the Passion’s thirst.
Red of heat and white of heat,
Champ it like fierce teeth that eat.

XIII

Strike it as the ages crush
Towers! for while a shape is seen
I am rivalled.  Quench its blush,
Devil!  But it crowns me Queen,
Red of heat, as none before,
White of heat, the circlet wore.

XIV

Lowly I will be, and quail,
Crawling, with a beggar’s hand:
On my breast the branded Nail,
On my head the iron band.
Red of heat, are none so base!
White of heat, none know such grace!

XV

In their heaven the sainted hosts,
Robed in violet unflecked,
Gaze on humankind as ghosts:
I draw down a ray direct.
Red of heat, across my brow,
White of heat, I touch Him now.

Robed in violet, robed in gold,
Robed in pearl, they make our dawn.
What am I to them?  Behold
What ye are to me, and fawn.
Red of heat, be humble, ye!
White of heat, O teach it me!

XVII

Martyrs! hungry peaks in air,
Rent with lightnings, clad with snow,
Crowned with stars! you strip me bare,
Pierce me, shame me, stretch me low,
Red of heat, but it may be,
White of heat, some envy me!

XVIII

O poor enviers!  God’s own gifts
Have a devil for the weak.
Yea, the very force that lifts
Finds the vessel’s secret leak.
Red of heat, I rise o’er all:
White of heat, I faint, I fall.

XIX

Those old Martyrs sloughed their pride,
Taking humbleness like mirth.
I am to His Glory tied,
I that witness Him on earth!
Red of heat, my pride of dust,
White of heat, feeds fire in trust.

Kindle me to constant fire,
Lest the nail be but a nail!
Give me wings of great desire,
Lest I look within, and fail!
Red of heat, the furnace light,
White of heat, fix on my sight.

XXI

Never for the Chosen peace!
Know, by me tormented know,
Never shall the wrestling cease
Till with our outlasting Foe,
Red of heat to white of heat,
Roll we to the Godhead’s feet!
   Beat, beat! white of heat,
   Red of heat, beat, beat!

I

Ladies who in chains of wedlock
Chafe at an unequal yoke,
Not to nightingales give hearing;
Better this, the raven’s croak.

II

Down the Prado strolled my seigneur,
Arm at lordly bow on hip,
Fingers trimming his moustachios,
Eyes for pirate fellowship.

III

Home sat she that owned him master;
Like the flower bent to ground
Rain-surcharged and sun-forsaken;
Heedless of her hair unbound.

IV

Sudden at her feet a lover
Palpitating knelt and wooed;
Seemed a very gift from heaven
To the starved of common food.

Love me? she his vows repeated:
Fiery vows oft sung and thrummed:
Wondered, as on earth a stranger;
Thirsted, trusted, and succumbed.

VI

O beloved youth! my lover!
Mine! my lover! take my life
Wholly: thine in soul and body,
By this oath of more than wife!

VII

Know me for no helpless woman;
Nay, nor coward, though I sink
Awed beside thee, like an infant
Learning shame ere it can think.

VIII

Swing me hence to do thee service,
Be thy succour, prove thy shield;
Heaven will hear!—in house thy handmaid,
Squire upon the battlefield.

IX

At my breasts I cool thy footsoles;
Wine I pour, I dress thy meats;
Humbly, when my lord it pleaseth,
Lie with him on perfumed sheets:

Pray for him, my blood’s dear fountain,
While he sleeps, and watch his yawn
In that wakening babelike moment,
Sweeter to my thought than dawn!—

XI

Thundered then her lord of thunders;
Burst the door, and, flashing sword,
Loud disgorged the woman’s title:
Condemnation in one word.

XII

Grand by righteous wrath transfigured,
Towers the husband who provides
In his person judge and witness,
Death’s black doorkeeper besides!

XIII

Round his head the ancient terrors,
Conjured of the stronger’s law,
Circle, to abash the creature
Daring twist beneath his paw.

XIV

How though he hath squandered Honour
High of Honour let him scold:
Gilding of the man’s possession,
’Tis the woman’s coin of gold.

She inheriting from many
Bleeding mothers bleeding sense
Feels ’twixt her and sharp-fanged nature
Honour first did plant the fence.

XVI

Nature, that so shrieks for justice;
Honour’s thirst, that blood will slake;
These are women’s riddles, roughly
Mixed to write them saint or snake.

XVII

Never nature cherished woman:
She throughout the sexes’ war
Serves as temptress and betrayer,
Favouring man, the muscular.

XVIII

Lureful is she, bent for folly;
Doating on the child which crows:
Yours to teach him grace in fealty,
What the bloom is, what the rose.

XIX