Ballads of Lost Haven | Page 9

of the Kelpie clan?"
"What are you doing there in the ground,?Kelpie rider, and never a sound
"To roam the night but the ghost of a cry?"?Ringing and swift there came reply,
"He is asleep where thou art afraid,?In the tawny arms of a goblin maid!"
Then I knew the voice was the voice of a girl,?And I marvelled much (while a little swirl
Of snow leaped up far off on the plain?Of sparkling dust and died again),
For what do the cloisters know, think ye,?Of women's ways? They be hard to see.
Again the voice cried, "Kin of my kin,?The child of the Sun shall win, shall win!"
'Twas an evil weird that so befell;?Yet I leaned and drank of the bubbling well.
I looked for my face in the crystal spring,?But the face that flickered there was a thing
To make the nape of your neck grow chill,?And every vein surge back and thrill
With a passion for something not their own--?In a life their life has never known.
For raven hair and eyes like the sun?Are merry but dour to look upon.
She smiled through her lashes under the wave,?And my soul went forth her bartered slave.
I swore, "By St. Louis, I'll come to thee,?Though I ride to my doom in the gulfs of the sea!
"Thy Kelpie rider shall wake and rue?His ruined life in the loss of you."
Then I fled in the start of a terror of joy,?O'er leagues where a legion might deploy;
For the acres of snow were level and hard,?Every flake like a crystal shard.
I was the runner of all Rochelle,?Could run with the hounds on Haric Fell;
And something stark as a gust of the sea?Had a grip of the whimsy boy in me.
I ran like the drift on the ice low curled?When the winds of Yule are abroad on the world.
Sudden, the beat of a throbbing sound?Lost in the core of the blue profound:
"Kelpie, Kelpie, Kelpie, come!"?Was it my heart?--But my heart was numb.
"Kelpie, Kelpie!" Was it the sea??Far on, at the verge of Bareau lea,
I saw like an army, shield and casque,?The breakers roll in the Roads of Basque.
"Kelpie, Kelpie!" Was it the wolves??In the dusk of pines where night dissolves
To streamers and stars through the mountain gorge,?I heard the blast of a giant forge.
Then I knew the wind was awake from the North,?And the ocean riders were freed and forth.
Time, there is time (now gallop, my heart!)?Ere the black riders disperse and depart.
The dawn is late, but the dawn comes round,?And Fleetfoot Jean has the wind of a hound.
The hue and cry of the Kelpie horde?Was growing and grim on that white seaboard.
It rolled and gathered and died and grew?Far off to the rear; a smile thereto
I turned; a fathom behind my ear?A rider rode with a shadowy leer.
I sickened and sped. He laughed aloud,?"Wind for a mourner, snow for a shroud!"
On and on, half blown, half blind,?Shadow and self, and the wind behind!
I slackened, he slackened; I fled, he flew;?In a swirl of snow-drift all night through
I scoured along the gusty fen,?A quarry for hunting Kelpie men.
But only one could hold at my side:?"Brother, brother, I love thy stride.
"Wilt thou follow thy whim to win?My merry maid of the goblin kin?"
I swerved from my trail, for he haunted my ear?With his moaning jibe and his shadowy leer.
So by good hap as we sped it fell,?I fetched a circuit back for the well.
Like a spilth of spume on the crest of the bore?When the combing tides make in for shore,
That runner ran whose love was a wraith;?But the rider rode with revenge in his teeth.
Another league, and I touch the goal,--?The mystic rune on the poplar bole,--
When the dusky eyes and the raven hair?And the lithe brown arms shall greet me there.
I ran like a harrier on the trace?In the leash of that ghoul, and the wind gave chase.
A furlong now; I caught the gleam?Of the bubbling well with its tiny stream;
An arrowy burst; I cleared the beck;?And--the Kelpie rider bestrode my neck.

Dawn, the still red winter dawn;?I awoke on the plain; the wind was gone;--
All gracious and good as when God made?The living creatures, and none was afraid.
I stooped to drink of the wholesome spring?Under the poplars whispering:
Face to my face in that water clear--?The Kelpie rider's jabbering leer!
Ah, God! not me: I was never so!?Sainted Louis, who can know
The lords of life from the slaves of death??What help avail the speeding breath
Of the spirit that knows not self's abode,--?When the soul is lost that knows not God?
I turned me home by St. Louis' Hall,?Where the red sun burns on the windows tall.
And I thought the world was strange and wild,?And God with his altar only a child.
IV
Again one year in the prime of June,?I came to the well in the heated noon,
Leaving Rochelle with its red roof tiles?By the Pottery Gate before