The Visions of England | Page 8

EDITH OF ENGLAND

1100
Through sapling shades of summer green,
By glade and height and hollow,
Where Rufus rode the stag to bay,

King Henry spurs a jocund way,
Another chase to follow.
But when he came to Romsey gate
The doors are open'd free,
And through the gate like sunshine streams
A maiden company:--
One girdled with the vervain-red,
And three in sendal gray,
And touch the trembling rebeck-strings
To their soft roundelay;--
--The bravest knight may fail in fight;
The red rust edge the sword;
The king his crown in dust lay down;
But Love is always Lord!
King Henry at her feet flings down,
His helmet ringing loudly:--
His kisses worship Edith's hand;
'Wilt
thou be Queen of all the land?'
--O red she blush'd and proudly!
Red as the crimson girdle bound
Beneath her gracious breast;
Red as the silken scarf that flames
Above his lion-crest.
She lifts and casts the cloister-veil
All on the cloister-floor:--
The novice maids of Romsey smile,
And think of love once more.

'Well, well, to blush!' the Abbess cried,
'The veil and vow deriding
That rescued thee, in baby days,
From
insolence of Norman gaze,
In pure and holy hiding.
--O royal child of South and North,
Malcolm and Margaret,
The promised bride of Heaven art thou,
And Heaven will not forget!
What recks it, if an alien King
Encoronet thy brow,
Or if the false Italian priest
Pretend to loose the vow?'
O then to white the red rose went
On Edith's cheek abiding!
With even glance she answer'd meek
'I
leave the life I did not seek,
In holy Church confiding':--
Then Love smiled true on Henry's face,
And Anselm join'd the hands
That in one race two races bound
By everlasting bands.
So Love is Lord, and Alfred's blood
Returns the land to sway;
And all her joyous maidens join
In their soft roundelay:
--For though the knight may fail in fight,
The red rust edge the sword,
The king his crown in dust lay down,
Yet Love is always Lord!
Edith, (who, after marriage, took the name Matilda in compliment to
Henry's mother), daughter to Malcolm King of Scotland by Margaret,

granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, had been brought up by her aunt
Christina, and placed in Romsey Abbey for security against Norman
violence. But she had always refused to take the vows, and was hence,
in opposition to her aunt's wish, declared canonically free to marry by
Anselm; called here an Italian priest, as born at Aosta. Henry had been
long attached to the Princess, and married her shortly after his
accession.
A CRUSADER'S TOMB
1230
Unnamed, unknown:--his hands across his breast
Set in sepulchral rest,
In yon low cave-like niche the warrior lies,
--A shrine within a shrine,--
Full of gray peace, while day to darkness
dies.
Then the forgotten dead at midnight come
And throng their chieftain's tomb,
Murmuring the toils o'er which
they toil'd, alive,
The feats of sword and love;
And all the air thrills like a summer
hive.
--How so, thou say'st!--This is the poet's right!
He looks with larger sight
Than they who hedge their view by present
things,
The small, parochial world
Of sight and touch: and what he sees, he
sings.
The steel-shell'd host, that, gleaming as it turns,
Like autumn lightning burns,
A moment's azure, the fresh flags that

glance
As cornflowers o'er the corn,
Till war's stern step show like a gala
dance,
He also sees; and pierces to the heart,
Scanning the genuine part
Each Red-Cross pilgrim plays: Some,
gold-enticed;
By love or lust or fame
Urged; or who yearn to kiss the grave of
Christ
And find their own, life-wearied:--Motley band!
O! ere they quit the Land
How maim'd, how marr'd, how changed
from all that pride
In which so late they left
Orwell or Thames, with sails out-swelling
wide
And music tuneable with the timing oar
Clear heard from shore to shore;
All Europe streaming to the mystic
East!
--Now on their sun-smit ranks
The dusky squadrons close in
vulture-feast,
And that fierce Day-star's blazing ball their sight
Sears with excess of light;
Or through dun sand-clouds the blue
scimitar's edge
Slopes down like fire from heaven,
Mowing them as the thatcher
mows the sedge.
Then many a heart remember'd, as the skies

Grew dark on dying eyes,
Sweet England; her fresh fields and
gardens trim;
Her tree-embower'd halls;
And the one face that was the world to
him.
--And one who fought his fight and held his way,
Through life's long latter day
Moving among the green, green English
meads,
Ere in this niche he took
His rest, oft 'mid his kinsfolk told the deeds
Of that gay passage through the Midland sea;
Cyprus and Sicily;
And how the Lion-Heart o'er the Moslem host
Triumph'd in Ascalon
Or Acre, by the tideless Tyrian coast,
Yet never saw the vast Imperial dome,
Nor the thrice-holy Tomb:--
--As that great vision of the hidden Grail
By bravest knights of old
Unseen:--seen only of pure Parcivale.
The 'Thud Crusade,' 1189-1193, is the subject of this poem. Richard
Coeur de Lion