The Pearl | Page 3

abide,?Their boles as blue as indigo;?Like silver clear the leaves spread wide,?That on each spray thick-quivering grow;?If a flash of light across them glide?With shimmering sheen they gleam and glow;?The gravel on the ground below?Seemed precious pearls of Orient;?The sunbeams did but darkling show?So gloriously those beauties blent.
The beauty of the hills so fair?Made me forget my sufferings;?I breathed fruit fragrance fine and rare,?As if I fed on unseen things;?Brave birds fly through the woodland there,?Of flaming hues, and each one sings;?With their mad mirth may not compare?Cithern nor gayest citole-strings;?For when those bright birds beat their wings,?They sing together, all content;?Keen joy to any man it brings?To hear and see such beauties blent.
So beautiful was all the wood?Where, guided forth by Chance, I strayed,?There is no tongue that fully could?Describe it, though all men essayed.?Onward I walked in merriest mood?Nor any highest hill delayed?My feet. Far through the forest stood?The plain with fairest trees arrayed,?Hedges and slopes and rivers wide,?Like gold thread their banks' garnishment;?And when I won the waterside,?Dear Lord! what wondrous beauties blent!
The beauties of that stream were steep,?All-radiant banks of beryl bright;?Sweet-sighing did the water sweep,?With murmuring music running light;?Within its bed fair stones lay deep;?As if through glass they glowed, as white?As streaming stars when tired men sleep?Shine in the sky on a winter night.?Pure emerald even the pebbles seemed,?Sapphire, or other gems that lent?Luster, till all the water gleamed?With the glory of such beauties blent.
III
For the beauteousness of downs and dales,?Of wood and water and proud plains,?My joy springs up and my grief quails,?My anguish ends, and all my pains.?A swift stream down the valley hales?My feet along. Bliss brims my brains;?The farther I follow those watery vales,?The stronger joy my heart constrains.?While Fortune fares as her proud will deigns,?Sending solace or sending sore,?When a man her fickle favour gains,?He looketh to have aye more and more.
There was more of marvel and of grace?Than I could tell, howe'er I tried;?The human heart that could embrace?A tenth part were well satisfied;?For Paradise, the very place,?Must be upon that farther side;?The water by a narrow space?Pleasance from pleasance did divide.?Beyond, on some slope undescried?The City stood, I thought, wherefore?I strove to cross the river's tide,?And ever I longed, yet more and more.
More, and still more wistfully,?The banks beyond the brook I scanned;?If, where I stood, 't was fair to see,?Still lovelier lay that farther land.?I sought if any ford might be?Found, up or down, by rock or sand;?But perils plainer appeared to me,?The farther I strode along the strand;?I thought I ought not thus to stand?Timid, with such bright bliss before;?Then a new matter came to hand?That moved my heart yet more and more.
Marvels more and more amaze?My mind beyond that water fair:?From a cliff of crystal, splendid rays,?Reflected, quiver in the air.?At the cliff's foot a vision stays?My glance, a maiden debonaire,?All glimmering white before my gaze;?And I know her,--have seen her otherwhere.?Like fine gold leaf one cuts with care,?Shone the maiden on the farther shore.?Long time I looked upon her there,?And ever I knew her more and more.
As more and more I scanned her face?And form, when I had found her so,?A glory of gladness filled the place?Beyond all it was wont to show.?My joy would call her and give chase,?But wonder struck my courage low;?I saw her in so strange a place,?The shock turned my heart dull and slow.?But now she lifts that brow aglow,?Like ivory smooth, even as of yore,?It made my senses straying go,?It stung my heart aye more and more.
IV
More than I liked did my fear rise.?Stock still I stood and dared not call;?With lips close shut and watchful eyes,?I stood as quiet as hawk in hall.?I thought her a spirit from the skies;?I doubted what thing might befall;?If to escape me now she tries,?How shall my voice her flight forestall??Then graciously and gay withal,?In royal robes, so sweet, so slight,?She rose, so modest and so small,?That precious one in pearls bedight.
Pearl bedight full royally,?Adown the bank with merry mien,?Came the maiden, fresh as fleur-de-lys.?Her surcoat linen must have been?Shining in whitest purity,?Slashed at the sides and caught between?With the fairest pearls, it seemed to me,?That ever yet mine eyes had seen;?With large folds falling loose, I ween,?Arrayed with double pearls, her white?Kirtle, of the same linen sheen,?With precious pearls all round was dight.
A crown with pearls bedight, the girl?Was wearing, and no other stone;?High pinnacled of clear white pearl,?Wrought as if pearls to flowers were grown.?No band nor fillet else did furl?The long locks all about her thrown.?Her air demure as duke or earl,?Her hue more white than walrus-bone;?Like sheer gold thread the bright hair strown?Loose on her shoulders, lying light.?Her colour took a deeper tone?With bordering pearls so fair bedight.
Bedight was every hem, and bound,?At wrists, sides, and