Ride to the Lady

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ride to the Lady, by Helen Gray
Cone
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Title: Ride to the Lady
Author: Helen Gray Cone
Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9559]
[This file was first
posted on October 8, 2003]
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Language: English
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, RIDE TO THE

LADY ***
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THE RIDE TO THE LADY
And Other Poems
BY
HELEN GRAY CONE
1891
CONTENTS
The Ride to the Lady
The First Guest
Silence
Arraignment
The Going Out of the Tide
King Raedwald
Ivo of Chartres
Madonna Pia
Two Moods of Failure
The Story of the "Orient"
A Resurrection
The Glorious Company

The Trumpeter
Comrades
The House of Hate
The Arrowmaker
A Nest in a Lyre
Thisbe
The Spring Beauties
Kinship
Compensation
When Willows Green
At the Parting of the Ways
The Fair Gray Lady
The Encounter.
Summer Hours
Love Unsung
The Wish for a Chaplet
Sonnets:
The Torch Race
To Sleep
Sister Snow
The Contrast

A Mystery
Triumph
In Winter, with the Book we had in Spring

Sere Wisdom
Isolation
The Lost Dryad
The Gifts of the Oak

The Strayed Singer
The Immortal Word
THE RIDE TO THE LADY

"Now since mine even is come at last,--
For I have been the sport of
steel,
And hot life ebbeth from me fast,
And I in saddle roll and
reel,--
Come bind me, bind me on my steed!
Of fingering leech I
have no need!"
The chaplain clasped his mailed knee.
"Nor need I
more thy whine and thee!
No time is left my sins to tell;
But look
ye bind me, bind me well!"
They bound him strong with leathern
thong,
For the ride to the lady should be long.
Day was dying; the poplars fled,
Thin as ghosts, on a sky blood-red;

Out of the sky the fierce hue fell,
And made the streams as the
streams of hell.
All his thoughts as a river flowed,
Flowed aflame as
fleet he rode,
Onward flowed to her abode,
Ceased at her feet,
mirrored her face.
(Viewless Death apace, apace,
Rode behind him
in that race.)
"Face, mine own, mine alone,
Trembling lips my lips have known,

Birdlike stir of the dove-soft eyne
Under the kisses that make them
mine!
Only of thee, of thee, my need!
Only to thee, to thee, I
speed!"
The Cross flashed by at the highway's turn;
In a beam of
the moon the Face shone stern.
Far behind had the fight's din died;
The shuddering stars in the welkin
wide
Crowded, crowded, to see him ride.
The beating hearts of the
stars aloof
kept time to the beat of the horse's hoof,
"What is the
throb that thrills so sweet?
Heart of my lady, I feel it beat!"
But his
own strong pulse the fainter fell,
Like the failing tongue of a hushing
bell.
The flank of the great-limbed steed was wet
Not alone with the
started sweat.
Fast, and fast, and the thick black wood
Arched its cowl like a black
friar's hood;

Fast, and fast, and they plunged therein,--
But the
viewless rider rode to win,
Out of the wood to the highway's light

Galloped the great-limbed steed in fright;
The mail clashed cold, and
the sad owl cried,
And the weight of the dead oppressed his side.

Fast, and fast, by the road he knew;
And slow, and slow, the stars
withdrew;
And the waiting heaven turned weirdly blue,
As a
garment worn of a wizard grim.
He neighed at the gate in the morning
dim.
She heard no sound before her gate,
Though very quiet was her
bower.
All was as her hand had left it late:
The needle slept on the
broidered vine,
Where the hammer and spikes of the passion-flower

Her fashioning did wait.
On the couch lay something fair,
With
steadfast lips and veiled eyne;
But the lady was not there,
On the wings of shrift and prayer,
Pure
as winds that winnow snow,
Her soul had risen twelve hours ago.

The burdened steed at the barred gate stood,
No whit the nearer to his
goal.
Now God's great grace assoil the soul
That went out in the
wood!
THE FIRST GUEST
When the house is finished, Death enters.
Eastern Proverb
Life's House being ready all,
Each chamber fair and dumb,
Ere life,
the Lord, is come
With pomp into