Right Royal

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Title: Right Royal
Author: John Masefield
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6452]
[Yes, we are more
than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on
December 15, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIGHT
ROYAL ***
Produced by Vital Debroey, Charles Franks
and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
RIGHT ROYAL
by JOHN MASEFIELD
NOTE
The persons, horses and events described in this poem are
imaginary.
No reference is made to any living person or horse.
JOHN MASEFIELD.
PART I
RIGHT ROYAL
An hour before the race they talked together
A pair of lovers in the
mild March weather,
Charles Cothill and the golden lady, Em.
Beautiful England's hands had fashioned them.
He was from Sleins, that manor up the Lithe;
Riding the Downs had
made his body blithe;
Stalwart he was, and springy, hardened, swift,

Able for perfect speed with perfect thrift,
Man to the core yet
moving like a lad.
Dark honest eyes with merry gaze he had,
A fine
firm mouth, and wind-tan on his skin.
He was to ride and ready to
begin.
He was to ride Right Royal, his own horse,
In the English
Chaser's Cup on Compton Course.
Under the pale coat reaching to his spurs
One saw his colours, which
were also hers,
Narrow alternate bars of blue and white
Blue as the
speedwell's eye and silver bright.

What with hard work and waiting for the race,
Trouble and strain
were marked upon his face;
Men would have said that something
worried him.
She was a golden lady, dainty, trim,
As like the love time as
laburnum blossom.
Mirth, truth and goodness harboured in her
bosom.
Pure colour and pure contour and pure grace
Made the sweet marvel
of her singing face;
She was the very may-time that comes in
When
hawthorns bud and nightingales begin.
To see her tread the red-tippt
daisies white
In the green fields all golden with delight,
Was to
believe Queen Venus come again,
She was as dear as sunshine after
rain;
Such loveliness this golden lady had.
All lovely things and pure things made her glad,
But most she loved
the things her lover loved,
The windy Downlands where the kestrels
roved,
The sea of grasses that the wind runs over
Where blundering
beetles drunken from the clover
Stumble about the startled passer-by.

There on the great grass underneath the sky
She loved to ride with
him for hours on hours,
Smelling the seasoned grass and those small
flowers,
Milkworts and thymes, that grow upon the Downs.
There
from a chalk edge they would see the towns:
Smoke above trees, by
day, or spires of churches
Gleaming with swinging wind-cocks on
their perches.
Or windows flashing in the light, or trains
Burrowing
below white smoke across the plains.
By night, the darkness of the
valley set
With scattered lights to where the ridges met
And three
great glares making the heaven dun,
Oxford and Wallingford and
Abingdon.
"Dear, in an hour," said Charles, "the race begins.
Before I start I
must confess my sins.
For I have sinned, and now it troubles me."
"I saw that you were sad," said Emily.

"Before I speak," said Charles, "I must premise.
You were not here to
help me to be wise,
And something happened, difficult to tell.
Even
if I sinned, I feel I acted well,
From inspiration, mad as that may
seem.
Just at the grey of dawn I had a dream.
It was the strangest dream I ever had.
It was the dream that drove me
to be mad.
I dreamed I stood upon the race-course here,
Watching a blinding
rainstorm blowing clear,
And as it blew away I said aloud,
'That
rain will make soft going on the ploughed.'
And instantly I saw the
whole great course,
The grass, the brooks, the fences toppt with gorse,

Gleam in the sun; and all the ploughland shone
Blue, like a marsh,
though now the rain had gone.
And in my dream I said, 'That plough
will be
Terrible work for some, but not for me.
Not for Right
Royal.'
And a voice said, 'No
Not for Right Royal.'
And I looked, and lo
There was Right Royal,