Wyndham Towers | Page 9

have seized the
soul of Cain
Meeting his brother in the stubble-field.
Anon came
one that hummed a blithe sea-song,
As he were fresh from tavern and

brave cheer,
And held the stars that blinked there in the blue
Boon
comrades. Singing in high-hearted way,
His true-love's kiss a
memory on his lip,
Straight on he came to unrenowned end
Whose
dream had been in good chain-mail to die
On some well-foughten
field, at set of sun,
With glorious peal of trumpets on his ear

Proclaiming victory. So had he dreamed.
And there, within an arch at
the stair-top
And screened behind a painted hanging-cloth
Of coiled
gold serpents ready to make spring,
Ignoble Death stood, his
convulsive hand
Grasping a rapier part-way down the blade
To deal
the blow with deadly-jewelled hilt--
Black Death, turned white with
horror of himself.
Straight on came he that sang the blithe sea-song;

And now his step was on the stair, and now
He neared the blazoned
hanging-cloth, and now . . .
The lights were out, and all life lay in trance
On floor or pallet,
blanketed to chin,
Each in his mask of sullen-seeming death--
Fond
souls that recked not what was in the air,
Else had the dead man's
scabbard as it clashed
Against the balustrade, then on the tiles,

Brought awkward witness. One base hind there was
Had stolen a
venison-pasty on the shelf,
And now did penance; him the fall half
roused
From dreadful nightmare; once he turned and gasped,
Then
straightway snored again. No other sound
Within the
dream-enchanted house was heard,
Save that the mastiff, lying at the
gate
With visionary bone, snarled in his sleep.
Secret as bridal-kiss
may murder be,
Done was the deed that could not be undone
Throughout eternity. O
silent tongue
That would blab all with silence! What to do?
How
hide this speechless witness from men's gaze?
Living, that body
vexed us; being dead
'T is like to give us trouble and to spare.
O for
a cavern in deep-bowelled earth!
Quick, ere the dusky petals of the
night
Unclosing bare the fiery heart of dawn
And thus undo us with
its garish light,
Let us this mute and pale accusing clay
In some

undreamed-of sepulchre bestow,
But where? Hold back thy
fleet-wing'd coursers, Time,
Whilst we bethink us! Ah--such place
there is!
Close, too, at hand--a place wherein a man
Might lie till
doomsday safer from the touch
Of prying clown than is the spiced
dust
Of an Egyptian in his pyramid.
At a dark alcove's end of that long hall,
The ancient armor-room in
the east wing,
A certain door (whereof no mortal knew
save
Wyndham, now that other lay a-cold)
Was to the panels of the wall so
set,
And with such devilish shrewdness overlaid
By carvings of
wild-flower and curled grape-leaf,
That one not in the favor of the
trick,
Albeit he knew such mechanism was,
Ere he put finger on the
secret spring
Had need of Job for ancestor, in faith!
You pressed a
rose, a least suspected rose,
And two doors turned on hinge, the inner
door
Closing a space of say some six feet square,
Unlighted,
sheathed with iron. Doubtless here
The mediaeval Wyndhams hid
their plate
When things looked wicked from the outer wall,
Or, on
occasion, a grim ruthless lord
Immured some inconvenient two-faced
friend--
To banquet bidden, and kept over night.
Such pranks were
played in Merrie England then.
Sealed in the narrow compass of that
cell,
Shut from God's light and his most precious air,
A man might
have of life a half-hour's lease
If he were hale and well-breathed at
the start.
Hither did Richard bear his brother's corse
And fling it down. Upon
the stone-paved floor
In a thin strip of moonlight flung it down,

And then drew breath. Perhaps he paused to glance
At the white face
there, with the strange half-smile
Out-living death, the brightness of
the hair
Lying in loops and tangles round the brow--
A seraph's face
of silver set in gold,

Such as the deft Italians know to carve;

Perhaps his tiger's blood cooled then, perhaps
Swift pity at his very
heart-strings tugged,
And he in that black moment of remorse,

Seeing how there his nobler self lay slain,
Had bartered all this

jewel-studded earth
To win life's color back to that wan cheek.
Ah,
let us hope it, and some mercy feel,
Since each at compt shall need of
mercy have.
Now how it happened, whether 't was the wind,
Or
whether 't was some incorporeal hand
That reached down through the
dark and did the thing,
Man knoweth not, but suddenly both doors,

Ere one could utter cry or put forth arm,
Closed with dull clang, and
there in his own trap
Incontinent was red-stained Richard caught,

And as by flash of lightning saw his doom.
Call, an thou wilt, but
every ear is stuffed
With slumber! Shriek, and run quick frenzied
hands
Along the iron sheathing of thy grave--
For 't is thy grave--no
egress shalt thou find,
No lock to break, no subtile-sliding bolt,
No
careless rivet, no half loosened plate
For dagger's point to fret at and
pry off
And let a stifling mortal get to air!
Angels of Light! what were a thousand years
Of rankling envy and
contemned love
And all the bitter draughts a man may drink
To that
half hour of Richard's with his Dead?
Through silence,