Ah, Geraldine, my Geraldine,
That night of love when last we met,
You have forgotten, Geraldine—
I never dreamed you would forget.
Ah, Geraldine, my Geraldine,
More lovely than that Asian queen,
Scheherazade, the beautiful,
Who in her orient palace cool
Of India, for a thousand nights
And one, beside her monarch lay,
Telling—while sandal-scented lights
And music stole the soul away—
Love tales of old Arabia,
Full of enchantments and emprise—
But no enchantments like your eyes.
Ah, Geraldine, loved Geraldine,
Less lovely were those maids, I ween,
Pampinea and Lauretta, who,
In gardens old of dusk and dew,
Sat with their lovers, maid and man,
In stately days Italian,
And in quaint stories, that we know
Through grace of good Boccaccio,
Told of fond loves,—some false, some true,—
But, Geraldine, none false as you.
Ah, Geraldine, lost Geraldine,
That night of love, when last we met,
You have forgotten, Geraldine—
I never dreamed you would forget.
'Twas summer; and the moon swam high,
A great pale pearl within the sky:
And down that purple night of love
The stars, concurrent spark on spark,
Seemed moths of flame that swarmed above:
And through the roses, o'er the park,
Star-like the fireflies sowed the dark:
A mocking-bird in some deep tree,
Drowsy with dreams and melody,—
Like a magnolia bud, that, dim,
Opens and pours its soul in musk,—
Gave to the moonlight and the dusk
Its heart's pure song, its evening hymn.
Oh, night of love! when in the dance
Your heart thrilled rapture into mine,
As, in a state of necromance,
A mortal hears a voice divine.
Oh, night of love! when from your glance
I drank sweet death as men drink wine.
You wearied of the waltz at last.
I led you out into the night.
Warm in my hand I held yours fast.
Your face was flushed; your eyes were bright.
The moon hung like a shell of light
Above the lake, the tangled trees;
And borne to us with fragrances
Of roses that were ripe to fall,
The soul of music from the hall
Beat in the moonlight and the breeze,
As youth's wild heart grown weary of
Desire and its dream of love.
I held your arm and, for a while,
We walked along the balmy aisle
Of blossoms that, like velvet, dips
Unto the lake which lilies tile
With stars; and hyacinths, with strips
Of heaven. And beside a fall,
That down a ferned and mossy wall
Fell in a lake,—deep, woodbine-wound,—
A latticed summer-house we found;
A green kiosk; through which the sound
Of waters and of zephyrs swayed,
And honeysuckle bugles played
Soft serenades of perfume sweet,—
Around which ran a rustic seat.
And seated in that haunted nook,—
I know not how it was,—a word,
A touch, perhaps, a sigh, a look,
Was father to the kiss I took;
Great things grow out of small I've heard.
And then it was I took between
My hands your face, loved Geraldine,
And gazed into your eyes, and told
The story ever new though old.
You did not look away, but met
My eyes with eyes whose lids were wet
With tears of truth; and you did lean
Your cheek to mine, my Geraldine.—
I never dreamed you would forget.
The night-wind and the water sighed:
And through the leaves, that stirred above,
The moonbeams swooned with music of
The dance—soft things in league with love:
I never dreamed that you had lied.
How all comes back now, Geraldine!
The melody; the glimmering scene;
Your angel face; and ev'n,—between
Your lawny breasts,—the heart-shaped jewel,—
To which your breath gave fluctuant fuel,—
A rosy star of stormy fire;
The snowy drift of your attire,
Lace-deep and fragrant: and your hair,
Disordered in the dance, held back
By one gemmed pin,—a moonbeam there,
Half-drowned within its night-like black.—
And I who sat beside you then
Seemed blessed above all mortal men.
I loved you for the way you sighed;
The way you said, "I love but you;"
The smile with which your lips replied;
Your lips, that from my bosom drew
The soul; your looks, like undenied
Caresses, that seemed naught but true:
I loved you for the violet scent
That clung about you as a flower;
Your moods, where grief and gladness blent,
An April-tide of sun and shower;
You were my creed, my testament,
Wherein I met with God's high power.
Was it because the loving see
Only what they desire shall be
There in the well-belovéd's soul,
Passion and heart's affinity,
That I beheld in you the whole
Of my love's image? and believed
You loved as I loved? nor perceived
Yours was a mask, a mockery!
Ah, Geraldine, lost Geraldine,
That night of love, when last we met,
You have forgotten, Geraldine—
I never dreamed you would forget.
AT THE CORREGIDOR'S
The young advocate Don Sebastian Lopez, between three pinches of snuff, lays the facts of the case before his friend, Don Emanuel de Cordova, chief magistrate of the City of Valladolid.
To Don Odora said Donna De Vine,
"I yield to thy long endeavor!—
At my balcony be on the stroke of nine,
And, Señor, I'm thine forever!"...
This beauty at first had the Don descried
As she quit the confessional: followed:
"What a face! what a form! what a foot!" he sighed,
And more that he, smiling, swallowed.
And with vows as soft as his oaths were sweet
Her heart he barricaded;
And pressed this point with a present meet,
And that point serenaded.
What else could the enemy do but yield
To such handsome importuning?
A gallant blade with a lute for shield
All night at her lattice mooning!
"Que es estrella! thou star of all girls!
Here's that for thy fierce duenna:
A purse of pistoles and a rosary o' pearls,
And gold as yellow as henna.
"She will drop from thy balcony's rail, my sweet,
My seraph! this silken ladder:
And then—sweet then!—my soul at thy feet,
What angel in Heaven gladder!"
And the end of it was—But I will not say
How he won to the room of the lady.—
Ah! to love is to live! and with youth—why, hey!
For the rest,—a maravedi!
Now comes her betrothed from the wars; and he,
A Count of the Court Castilian,
A Don Diabolus! sword at knee,
And face and hair—vermilion.
And his is a jealous love; and—for
The story grows sadder and sadder—
He watches, and sees—a robber? to her,
Or gallant? ascend a ladder.
So he pushes inquiry into her room;
With his naked sword demanding:
An alguazil, with a face like doom,
Sure of a stout withstanding.
And weapon to weapon they foined and fought:
The Count's first thrusts were vicious:
Three thrusts to the floor Odora had brought:
And one through the white, capricious.
The naked bosom of Donna De Vine—
And this is the Count's condition....
Was he right? was he wrong?—the question is mine;—
To judge—for the Inquisition.
AN EPISODE
A woman speaks. Year 1218; war of the Albigenses.
I
Saint Dominick, Pope Innocent,
Thou holy host Lyons once bent
On Languedoc, may God the Father
Plunge you in everlasting Hell!
And may the blood of those who fell
At Béziers together gather
In torrents of eternal pain,
And on your souls beat boiling rain!
II
And Mountfort!—it was given me,
(For I had prayed incessantly),
To be the David to this giant.—
An Albigensian warrior
My husband was. He, in the war,
The Pope had thundered on defiant
Thoulouse and outlawed Languedoc,
Stood with Earl Raymond like a rock.
III
The walls of Béziers cried loud,
And Carcassonne's, red in their cloud
Of blood, disease, and conflagration,
For vengeance!—When he left me here,
With my two babes, I felt no fear.
The crusade's excommunication
Poured down its holy Catholics
To crush and burn us heretics.
IV
At Carcassonne he fell. And there
My babes died famished. And despair
And hell were mine within their prison,
Till Mother of our God portrayed
This Mountfort's death. On me were laid
Blessed hands of power in a vision.
A call, my soul could not refuse,
Compelled me to besieged Thoulouse.
No arrow mine, no arbalist;
A sling, a stone, a woman's wrist
God and His virgin Mother aided.—
Their engines rocked our walls. I felt
The time had come and, praying, knelt;
Then, from the sling my hair had braided,
Launched at De Mountfort's bassinet
The rock where eyebrow eyebrow met.
VI
Thus Mountfort died. Of Carcassonne
Our Lady 'twas who aimed the stone,
That slew this monster that was master:—
For I—I was the instrument,
Saint Dominick and Innocent,
That hurled on you and yours disaster!
Two armies saw me whirl the sling
While Heaven stood by me—white of wing.
THE SLAVE
He waited till within her tower
Her taper signalled him the hour.
He was a prince both fair and brave.
What hope that he would love her slave!
He of the Persian dynasty;
And she a Queen of Araby!—
No Peri singing to a star
Upon the sea were lovelier.
I helped her drop the silken rope.
He clomb, aflame with love and hope.
I drew the dagger from my gown
And cut the ladder, leaning down.
Oh, wild his face, and wild the fall:
Her face was wilder than them all.
The eunuchs came: fierce scimitars
Stirred in the torch-lit corridors.
She spoke like one who prays in sleep,
And bade me strike or she would leap.
I bade her leap; the time was short;
And kept the dagger for my heart.
She leapt. I put their blades aside
And smiling in their faces—died.
THE ROSICRUCIAN
I
The tripod flared with a purple spark,
And the mist hung emerald in the dark:
Now he stooped to the lilac flame
Over the glare of the amber embers,
Thrice to utter no earthly name;
Thrice, like a mind that half remembers;
Bathing his face in the magic mist
Where the brilliance burned like an amethyst.
II
"Sylph, whose soul was born of mine,
Born of the love that made me thine,
Once more flash on the flesh! Again
Be the loved caresses taken!
Lip to lip let our mouths remain!—
Here in the circle of sense, awaken!
Ere spirit meets spirit, the flesh laid by,
Let me know thee, and let me die!"
Sunset heavens may burn, but never
Know such splendor! There bloomed an ever
Opaline orb, where the sylphid rose
A shape of luminous white; diviner
White than the essence of light that sows
The moons and suns through space; and finer
Than radiance born of a shooting-star,
Or the wild Aurora that streams afar.
IV
"Look on the face of the soul to whom
Thou givest thy soul like added perfume!
Thou, who heard'st me, who long had prayed,
Waiting alone at evening's portal!—
Thus on thy lips let my lips be laid,
Love, who hast made me all immortal!
Give me thine arms now! Come and rest
Happiness out on my beaming breast!"
V
Was it her soul? or the sapphire fire
That sang like the note of a Seraph's lyre?
Out of her mouth there came no word—
She spake with her soul, as a flower speaketh
Fragrant messages none hath heard,
Which the sense divines when the spirit seeketh....
And he seemed alone in a place so dim
That the spirit's face, who was gazing at him,
For its burning eyes he could not see:
Then he knew he had died; that she and he
Were one; and he saw that this was she.
THE NORMAN KNIGHT
Within the castle chamber
The Norman knight lay dead;
The quarterings of the casement
Shone holy round his head.
And first there came a maiden;
Her face was wet and white:
She kissed his mouth and murmured,
"Thou wast my own true knight."
Within the arrased chamber
The Norman knight lay dead;
And tapers four and twenty
Burnt at his feet and head.
And next there came a friar
And prayed beside the bier:
"Thou art a blesséd angel,
Who wast so noble here."
Within the lofty chamber
The Norman knight lay dead;
Dim through the carven casement
The moonbeams lit his head.
And then there came a varlet—
Loud laughed he in his face:
"Thus do I spit upon thee,
Thee and thy curséd race!"
Within the silent chamber
The Norman knight lay dead—
Nor Norman knight nor Saxon serf
Heard aught the dead man said.
THE KHALIF AND THE ARAB
Among the tales, wherein it hath been told,
In golden letters in a book of gold,
Of Hatim Tai's hospitality,
Who, substanceless and dead and shadowy,
Made men his guests upon a mountain top
Whereon his tomb grayed from a thistle crop;—
A tomb of rock where women, hewn of stone,
Rude figures, spread dishevelled hair, whose moan
From dark to daybreak made the silence sigh,
At which the camel-drivers, tented nigh,
"Ghouls or hyenas" shuddering would say,
But only granite women find at day:—
Among such tales—who questions of their truth?—
One tale still haunts me from my earliest youth;
Of that lost city, Sheddad son of Aad
Built 'mid the Sebaa sands,—a king who had
Dominion over many lands and kings,—
That city, built in pride and pow'r, of things
Unstable of the earth. For he had read
Of Paradise and to himself had said,
"Now in this life the like of Paradise
I'll build me and the Prophet's may despise,
Having no need of that he promises."
So for this city taxed the lands and seas,
And columned Irem, on a blinding height,
Blazed in the desert like a chrysolite;
The manner of its building, it is told,
Alternate bricks of silver and of gold.
But Sheddad with his women and his slaves,
His thousand viziers, armored troops, as waves
Of ocean countless, God with awful flame—
Shot sheer in thunder on him—overcame,
Confounded, and abolished; (ere his eyes
Had glimpsed bright follies of that paradise)
And blotted to a wilderness the land
Wherein accursed it lies and lost in sand.—
Sad tales and glad; and 'mid them one, in sooth,
That is recorded of an Arab youth.
The Khalif Hisham ben Abdulmelik,
Hunting one day, through some unusual freak
Rode, parted from his retinue, and gave
Chase to an antelope. Without a slave,
Vizier or amir to a pasture place
Of sheep he came, where dark, in tattered grace,
Watched one, an Arab youth. And as it came
The antelope drew off, with words of flame,
On fire with rage, unto the youth he turned,
Shouting, "Thou slave! ho, hast thou not discerned
The antelope escapes me? Up, dog, run!
Head him back this way!"
Rising in the sun,
The Arab flamed, "O ignorant of worth!
Unworthy of respect!—though high thy birth,—
In that thou look'st upon me,—vile of heart!—
As one fit for contempt, thou lack'st no part
Of my disdain!—Allah! I would not own
A dog of thine for friend, no other known!
Poor though I be, thou tyrant mixed with ass!"
And flung him, rags and rage, into the grass.
Incensed, astonished, frowning furiously,
Said Hisham, "Slave! thou know'st me not, I see!"
Calmly the youth, "Aye, verily I know!—
O mannerless! who would command me so,
Except thyself, ere he said 'Peace to thee'?
Well art thou known, aye! all too well of me!"
"O dog! I am thy Khalif! by a hair
Thy life hangs raveling."
"Though it dangle there
And rot to nothing, still upon thy head
Would curses shower!—Of thy dwelling place
Would Allah be forgetful!—Go thy ways,
Hisham ben Merwan, king of many words,
Few generosities!"...
A flash of swords
In drifts of dust and, lo! the Khalif's troops
Around them rode.—As when a merlin stoops
Some stranger quarry, prey that swims the wind,
Heron or eagle; kenning not its kind
There, whence 'tis cast, until it, towering, feels
An eagle's tearing talons, and still deals
Blow upon blow, though hopeless;—so the youth,—
An Arab, fearless as the face of Truth,
Of all that made him certain of his death,—
Waited with eyes indifferent, equal breath.
The palace reached, "Bring me the prisoner,"
Commanded Hisham. And he came as were
He in no wise concerned; with eyes intent
On some far thing; and on the floor a bent
Dark gaze of scornful freedom unafraid,
Till at the Khalif's throne his steps were stayed:
And, unsaluting, standing head held down,
An armed attendant blazed him with a frown,
"Dog of a Bedouin! may thy eyes rot out!
Insulter! art thou blind? and must I shout
'Thou stand'st before the Sultan! bend thy knee'?"
To him the Arab, sneering, "Verily,
Packsaddle of an ass! it well may be!
I kneel to none but God."
The Khalif's rage
Exceeded now, and, "By my realm and age!
Arab, thy hour is come, thy very last!"
Then said, "Call in the headsman.—Fool, thou hast
Cast thy young life away. Its thread is past."
The shepherd answered, "Aye?—by Allah, then,
If through thy means it might be stretched again,
Unscissored of what Destiny ordain,
Back in thy face I'd fling it as in vain."
Then the chief Chamberlain: "O vilest one
Of all the Arabs! wilt thou not be done
Bandying thy baseness with the Ruler of
The Faithful? thou, with wordy filth enough
Within thy madman mouth to fill a jakes!
Viler than dirt that one from out it rakes,
Here's more for thee!" and spat into his face.
And the dark Arab, with that last disgrace
All fire, answered: "Thou, perhaps, hast heard
The Koran text that says—'tis God's own word!—
'The day will come when each soul shall be prompt
To bow before Me and to give accompt.'"
Then wroth indeed was Hisham: fiercely said,
"He braves us!—Headsman, ho! his peevish head!
See: canst thou medicine its speech anew;
Doctor its multiplying words to few:
Divorce them well."
So, where the Arab stood,
Bound him; made kneel upon the cloth of blood.
With curving sword the headsman leaned, at pause,
And,—as 'tis custom, made of Moslem laws,—
To the descendant of the Prophet quoth,
"O Khalif, shall I strike?"
"By Iblis' oath!
Strike!" answered Hisham. But again the slave
Questioned; and yet again the Khalif gave
His nodded "yea"; and for the third time then
He asked: and knowing neither men nor Jinn
Might save him if the Khalif spake assent,
Signalled the sword, the youth with body bent
Laughed—till the wang-teeth of each jaw appeared;
Laughed—as with scorn the King of kings he'd beard,
Deriding Death. So, with redoubled spleen,
Roared Hisham, rising, "It is truly seen
This one is mad who mocks at Azrael!"
Then said the Arab: "Listen!—Once befell,
Commander of the Faithful, that a hawk,
A hungry hawk, pounced on a sparrow-cock;
And winging nestward with his meal in claw,
To him the sparrow,—for the creature saw
The hawk's conceit,—addressed this slyly, 'Oh,
Most great, most royal, there is not, I know,
Aught in me that will stay thy stomach's stress:
I am too paltry for thy mightiness!'
With which the hawk was pleased, and flattered so
That, in a while, he let the sparrow go."
Then smiled the Khalif Hisham: and a sign
Staying the scimitar, that hung malign,
A threatening crescent, said: "God bless, preserve
The Prophet whom all true believers serve!—
Now, by my kinship to the Prophet! and
Had he at first but spake us thus this hand
Had ne'er been wrathful; and, instead of hate,
He had had all—except the Khalifate."
Bade stuff his mouth with jewels and entreat
Him courteously, then from the palace beat.
ARABAH
"The third of these heroes, the blind Arabah."—Gibbon.
And one brought pearls and one brought passion-flowers
To blind Arabah as he lay in dreams,
And one brought visions of the after hours.
And he beheld the rainbow-rolling streams
Of Eden on harmonious sands of gold,
And battlements, builded of prismatic beams.
He was not sightless now, nor weak, nor old;
For lo! the dark-eyed girls of Paradise
Rained on him gifts and kisses.
And 'tis told
How blind Arabah rose with unsealed eyes,
With seeing eyes; he who to Allah gave
All that he had; which happened in this wise:—
"Who's this that lies upon the mosque's cold pave?"—
"A blind man, whom an angel's hand shall lead."—
"A beggar, richer than the rich who have."—
"Behold the lesson, such as Sufis feed
The soul upon!—O faith, blind-praying, see,
Out of thyself how God repays indeed,
Ten-thousandfold, one generosity!"...
All Baghdad knew how, at the hour of prayer,
A slave beneath each shoulder, it was he,
Old, blind Arabah, whom a suppliant there,
Footsore and hungry, met and asked for bread.
"Alas! my son, God's poor are everywhere,"—
Hoar as a Koreish priest, Arabah said;—
"Richer than thou am I though poor indeed!
Take thou my slaves and sell, and buy thee bread."—
Thrust him his slaves and said, "Great is thy need.
Refuse, and I renounce them!"—And the wall
Struck with his staff, saying, "This now shall lead."
—While from the mosque rang the muezzin's call,
"God is most mighty! Allah seeth all!"
THE SEVEN DEVILS
There is a legend, lost in some old dusty
Tome of the East,—and who will question it?—
Concluding ancient wisdom, rather musty,
Wherein much war and wickedness and wit,
Insult and wrath and love and shame are writ:
Wherein is written that, when Mahomet
Fled out of Mecca from the people's wrath,
He met a shadow standing in his path,
A naked horror, blacker than hewn jet.
It in one hand held out a flaming jewel,
Wherein fierce colors burnt and blent like eyes
Of seven fires, merciless as cruel:
The horror said, "God cursed them for their lies.
These are the seven devils of the wise,
And I am Satan!" And the prophet saw
How he might punish Mecca for its pride;
And, gazing on the Fiend, "Allah," he cried,
"Let them be free!" His word, like God's, was law.
Since then these seven devils have descended
From nation unto nation, past the ken
Of Mahomet, who left earth undefended
Of any amulet of tongue or pen
'Gainst demons boring at the brains of men:
Demons, whose names I dare not breathe or write,
For fear of fear, despair and madness, born
Of horror, and of frenzy all forlorn,
And shadowy evils of the day and night.
THAMUS
And it is said that Thamus sailed
Off islands of Ægean seas
No seaman yet had ever hailed;
No vessel touched, no ship of Greece,
Phœnician or the Chersonese.
And, lying all becalmed, 'tis told
How wonderful with peace that night
Rolled out of dusk and dreamy gold
One star, whose splendor seemed to light
The world with majesty and might.
Like shadows on a shadow-ship
The dark-haired, dark-eyed sailors lay;
When from the island seemed to slip,
Borne overhead and far away,
A voice that "Thamus!" seemed to say.
Then silence: and the languid Greek,
The lounging Cretan, watched the sky,
Or, in carousal, ceased to speak
And sing. Again came rolling by
The voice, and "Thamus!" in its cry.
All were awake: tall, swarthy men
With bated breath stood listening,
Or gravely scanned the shore. And then,
Although they saw no living thing,
Again they heard the summons ring.
And "Thamus!" sounded shore and sea:
And at the third call leaned the Greek,
Full facing toward the isle; and he
Cried to the voice and bade it speak
The mission, message it would seek.
"Thou shalt sail on to such a place
Among the pagan seas," it said;
"To such a land: and thou shalt face
Against it when the east is red,
And cry aloud, 'Great Pan is dead!'"...
As fearful of unholy word
Their souls stood stricken with strange fear.
Then Thamus said, "Yea, I have heard.
Yet 'tis my purpose still to steer
Straight on. That land shall never hear!"
And so they sailed that night; and came
Into an unknown sea; and there
The east burnt like a sword of flame
A Cyclops forges: straight the air
Fell sick with calm: the morn was fair.
Then double dread was theirs; and dread
Was Thamus'; and he raised his hand
And shouted, "Pan! great Pan is dead!"
And all the twilight-haunted land
Cried, "Pan is dead!" from peak to strand.
They saw pale shrines and temples nod
Among the shaken trees: and pale
Wild forms of goddess and of god
Crawl forth with crumbling limbs and trail
Woe, till the dim land grew one wail.—
What tripods groaned?—Serapis first
Within Canopus' temples heard
The word, and his brute granite burst
Its monster bulk. Dodona stirred
And bowed its oaks before the word
That left them thunder-riv'n; then passed
To Aphaca where, marble-hewn,
Venus possessed a well that glassed
Her form, white-burning, like the moon—
And lo! her loveliness lay strewn.
Then o'er Cilicia swept, and bent
Sarpedon's oracle with scorn,
Apollo.—Yea! the gods lay rent
And Delphos dumb. And, lo! the morn
Flamed o'er the world where Christ lay born.
THE MAMELUKE
I
She was a queen. 'Midst mutes and slaves,
A mameluke, he loved her.—Waves
Dashed not more hopelessly the paves
Of her high marble palace-stair
Than lashed his love his heart's despair.—
As souls in Hell dream Paradise,
He suffered yet forgot it there
Beneath Rommaneh's houri eyes.
II
With passion eating at his heart
He served her beauty, but dared dart
No look at her or word impart.—
Taïfi leather's perfumed tan
Beneath her, on a low divan
She lay 'mid cushions stuffed with down;
A slave-girl with an ostrich fan
Sat by her in a golden gown.
She bade him sing; fair lutanist
She loved his voice: with one white wrist,
Hooped with a blaze of amethyst,
She raised her ruby-crusted lute:
Gold-welted stuff, like some rich fruit,
Her raiment, diamond-showered, rolled
Folds pigeon-purple, whence one foot
Drooped in an anklet-twist of gold.
IV
He stood and sang with all the fire
That boiled within his blood's desire,
That made him all her slave yet higher:
And, at the end, his passion durst
Quench with one burning kiss its thirst.—
O eunuchs! did her face show scorn
When through his heart your daggers burst?
And dare you say he died forlorn?
ROMAUNT OF THE ROSES
A jongleur tells to the Viscountess of Ventadour,—wife of the Seigneur of the Château de Ventadour, in Limousin,—how the troubadour Bernard, her former lover, met his death. Time, the middle of the 12th century.
All the night was drowned in dreaming;
And, above the terraced height,
Hung the moon, a sinking crescent,
In the ocean mirrored white;
And a breath of distant music
And of fragrance filled the night.
Dripped the musk of myriad roses
From a million heavy sprays;
And the nightingales were sobbing
'Mid the roses, where the haze
And the purple mists of midnight
Caught the moonlight's rippled rays.
And the towers of the palace,
'Mid its belt of ancient trees,
On the mountain rose, romantic,
White as foam of summer seas;
And the murmur of the ocean
Made a harp of every breeze.
Where the moon shone on the terrace
And its fountains' falling foam;
Where the marble urns of flowers
Spilled their perfume in the gloam;
By the alabaster Venus
Stood her troubadour come home.
Bernard, he who was my master
And your lover, Ventadour;
There to meet her by commandment,
She the lovely Eleanor;
She of Normandy the Duchess,
He a simple troubadour.
And she met him by the statue,
By the marble Venus there,—
Like a moonbeam 'mid the roses,
Who their crimson hearts laid bare,
Breathing out their lives in fragrance,
At her naked feet and fair.—
Then she told him she was Queen now,
That her husband now was King,
King of England; and to-morrow
She would sail. And then a ring
From her hand she took and gave him;
For the last time bade him sing.
And he sang. Below, the dingles,
Where the lazy vapors lolled,
Where the torrent flashed its cascade,
Touched with amethyst and gold,
Echoed; where the wild deer glimmered
By the ruin gray and old.
From the Venus then, or roses,
Struck a dagger; snake that stung,
Laid him dead who'd tuned her heart's strings
Till for him alone they sung:
Stilled the heart of him who only
From her heart one note had wrung.
And the nightingales kept singing
'Mid the roses, while, like stone,
Eleanor sank pale beside him,
And unto the palace lone
Stole a shadow with a dagger,
Who shall sit upon a throne.