Myth and Romance | Page 7

crystal; here, a carven chair,?Whereon her raiment,--that suggests sweet curves?Of shapely beauty,--bearing her limbs' impress,?Is richly laid: and, near the chair, a glass,?An oval mirror framed in ebony:?And, dim and deep,--investing all the room?With ghostly life of woven women and men,?And strange fantastic gloom, where shadows live,--?Dark tapestry,--which in the gusts--that twinge?A grotesque cresset's slender star of light--?Seems moved of cautious hands, assassin-like,?That wait the hour.
She alone, deep-haired?As rosy dawn, and whiter than a rose,?Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love,?Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon,?Like Dana? within the golden shower.?Seated beside her aromatic rest,?In rapture musing on her loveliness,?Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope?The curious baldric of his tunic, glints?With pearl-reflections of the moon, that seem?The silent ghosts of long-dead melodies.?In purple and sable, slashed with solemn gold,?Like stately twilight o'er the snow-heaped hills,?He bends above her.--
Have his hands forgot?Their craft, that they pause, idle on the strings??His lips, their art, that they cease, speechless there?--?His eyes are set.... What is it stills to stone?His hands, his lips? and mails him, head and heel,?In terrible marble, motionless and cold?--?Behind the arras, can it be he feels,?Black-browed and grim, with eyes of sombre fire,?Death towers above him with uplifted sword?
_Romaunt of?the Oak_
"I rode to death, for I fought for shame--?The Lady Maurine of noble name,
"The fair and faithless!--Though life be long?Is love the wiser?--Love made song
"Of all my life; and the soul that crept?Before, arose like a star and leapt:
"Still leaps with the love that it found untrue,?That it found unworthy.--Now run me through!
"Yea, run me through! for meet and well,?And a jest for laughter of fiends in hell,
"It is that I, who have done no wrong,?Should die by the hand of Hugh the Strong,
"Of Hugh her leman!--What else could be?When the devil was judge twixt thee and me?
"He splintered my lance, and my blade he broke--?Now finish me thou 'neath the trysting oak!" ...
The crest of his foeman,--a heart of white?In a bath of fire,--stooped i' the night;
Stooped and laughed as his sword he swung,?Then galloped away with a laugh on his tongue....
But who is she in the gray, wet dawn,?'Mid the autumn shades like a shadow wan?
Who kneels, one hand on her straining breast,?One hand on the dead man's bosom pressed?
Her face is dim as the dead's; as cold?As his tarnished harness of steel and gold.
O Lady Maurine! O Lady Maurine!?What boots it now that regret is keen?
That his hair you smooth, that you kiss his brow?What boots it now? what boots it now?...
She has haled him under the trysting oak,?The huge old oak that the creepers cloak.
She has stood him, gaunt in his battered arms,?In its haunted hollow.--"Be safe from storms,"
She laughed as his cloven casque she placed?On his brow, and his riven shield she braced.
Then sat and talked to the forest flowers?Through the lonely term of the day's pale hours.
And stared and whispered and smiled and wept,?While nearer and nearer the evening crept.
And, lo, when the moon, like a great gold bloom?Above the sorrowful trees did loom,
She rose up sobbing, "O moon, come see?My bridegroom here in the old oak-tree!
"I have talked to the flowers all day, all day,?For never a word had he to say.
"He would not listen, he would not hear,?Though I wailed my longing into his ear.
"O moon, steal in where he stands so grim,?And tell him I love him, and plead with him.
"Soften his face that is cold and stern?And brighten his eyes and make them burn,
"O moon, O moon, so my soul can see?That his heart still glows with love for me!" ...
When the moon was set, and the woods were dark,?The wild deer came and stood as stark
As phantoms with eyes of fire; or fled?Like a ghostly hunt of the herded dead.
And the hoot-owl called; and the were-wolf snarled;?And a voice, in the boughs of the oak-tree gnarled,--
Like the whining rush of the hags that ride?To the witches' sabboth,--crooned and cried.
And wrapped in his mantle of wind and cloud?The storm-fiend stalked through the forest loud.
When she heard the dead man rattle and groan?As the oak was bent and its leaves were blown,
And the lightning vanished and shimmered his mail,?Through the swirling sweep of the rain and hail,
She seemed to hear him, who seemed to call,--?"Come hither, Maurine, the wild leaves fall!
"The wild leaves rustle, the wild leaves flee;?Come hither, Maurine, to the hollow tree!
"To the trysting tree, to the tree once green;?Come hither, Maurine! come hither, Maurine!" ...
They found her closed in his armored arms--?Had he claimed his bride on that night of storms?
_Morgan le?Fay_
In dim samite was she bedight,?And on her hair a hoop of gold,?Like fox-fire in the tawn moonlight,
Was glimmering cold.
With soft gray eyes she gloomed and glowered;?With soft red lips she sang a song:?What knight might gaze upon her face,
Nor fare along?
For all