Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. | Page 5

silence, silence,
Ye three wild fiends!"
It seemed a smoke obscured the air,?Bright lightning quivered in the gloom,?And a faint voice of thunder spake?Far in the lone hill-hollows--"Come!"?Then, half in fury, half in dread,?The fiends drew closer down, and said:
"Nay, thou stubborn fond old man,
Hearken awhile!?Thorn, and dust, and ice and heat,?Tarry now, sit down and eat:?Heat, and ice, and dust and thorn;?Stricken, footsore, parched, forlorn--?Juice of purple grape shall be?Youth and solace unto thee.?Music of tambour, wire and wind,?Ease shall bring to heart and mind;?Wonderful sweet mouths shall sigh?Languishing and lullaby;?Turn then! Curse the dream that lures thee;?Turn thee, ere too late it be,?Lest thy three true friends grow weary
Of comforting thee!"
The Pilgrim crouches terrified?As stooping hood, and glassy face,?Gloating, evil, side by side,?Terror and hate brood o'er the place;?He flings his withered hands on high?With a bitter, breaking cry:--?"Leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me,
Ye three wild fiends!?If I lay me down in slumber,?Then I lay me down in wrath;?If I stir not in dark dreaming,?Then I wither in my path;?If I hear sweet voices singing,?'Tis a demon's lullaby:?And, in 'hideous storm and terror,'
Wake but to die."
And even as he spake, on high?Arrows of sunlight pierced the sky.?Bright streamed the rain. O'er burning snow?From hill to hill a wondrous bow?Of colour and fire trembled in air,?Painting its heavenly beauty there.?Wild flapped each fiend a batlike hood?Against that 'frighting light, and stood?Beating the windless rain, and then?Rose heavy and slow with cowering head,?Circled in company again,?And into darkness fled.
Marvellous sweet it was to hear?The waters gushing loud and clear;?Marvellous happy it was to be?Alone, and yet not solitary;?Oh, out of terror and dark to come
In sight of home!
THE GAGE
"Lady Jane, O Lady Jane!?Your hound hath broken bounds again,?And chased my timorous deer, O;?If him I see,?That hour he'll dee;?My brakes shall be his bier, O."
"Hoots! lord, speak not so proud to me!?My hound, I trow, is fleet and free,?He's welcome to your deer, O;?Shoot, shoot you may,?He'll gang his way,?Your threats we nothing fear, O."
He's fetched him in, he's laid him low,?Drips his lifeblood red and slow,?Darkens his dreary eye, O;?"Here is your beast,?And now at least?My herds in peace shall lie, O."
"'In peace!' my lord, O mark me well!?For what my jolly hound befell?You shall sup twenty-fold, O!?For every tooth?Of his, in sooth,?A stag in pawn, I hold, O.
"Huntsman and horn, huntsman and horn,?Shall scour your heaths and coverts lorn,?Braying 'em shrill and clear, O;?But lone and still?Shall lift each hill,?Each valley wan and sere, O.
"Ride up you may, ride down you may,?Lonely or trooped, by night or day,?My hound shall haunt you ever:?Bird, beast, and game?Shall dread the same,?The wild fish of your river."
Her cheek burns angry as the rose,?Her eye with wrath and pity flows:?He gazes fierce and round, O--?"Dear Lord!" he says,?"What loveliness?To waste upon a hound, O.
"I'd give my stags, my hills and dales,?My stormcocks and my nightingales?To have undone this deed, O;?For deep beneath?My heart is death?Which for her love doth bleed, O."
He wanders up, he wanders down,?On foot, a-horse, by night and noon:?His lands are bleak and drear, O;?Forsook his dales?Of nightingales,?Forsook his moors of deer, O,
Forsook his heart, ah me! of mirth;?There's nothing gladsome left on earth;?All thoughts and dreams seem vain, O,?Save where remote?The moonbeams gloat,?And sleeps the lovely Jane, O.
Until an even when lone he went,?Gnawing his beard in dreariment--?Lo! from a thicket hidden,?Lovely as flower?In April hour,?Steps forth a form unbidden.
"Get ye now down, my lord, to me!?I'm troubled so I'm like to dee,"?She cries, 'twixt joy and grief, O;?"The hound is dead,?When all is said,?But love is past belief, O.
"Nights, nights I've lain your lands to see,?Forlorn and still--and all for me,?All for a foolish curse, O;?Now here am I?Come out to die--?To live unloved is worse, O!"
In faith, this lord, in that lone dale,?Hears now a sweeter nightingale,?And lairs a tenderer deer, O;?His sorrow goes?Like mountain snows?In waters sweet and clear, O!
What ghostly hound is this that fleet?Comes fawning to his mistress' feet,?And courses round his master??How swiftly love?May grief remove,?How happy make disaster!
Now here he smells, now there he smells,?Winding his voice along the dells,?Till grey flows up the morn, O?Then hies again?To Lady Jane?No longer now forlorn, O.
Ay, as it were a bud, did break?To loveliness for her love's sake,?So she in beauty moving?Rides at his hand?Across his land,?Beloved as well as loving.
AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING
As Lucy went a-walking one morning cold and fine,?There sate three crows upon a bough, and three times three is nine: Then "O!" said Lucy, in the snow, "it's very plain to see?A witch has been a-walking in the fields in front of me."
Then slept she light and heedfully across the frozen snow,?And plucked a bunch of elder-twigs that near a pool did grow: And, by and by, she comes