Wyndham Towers | Page 5

on that smooth and sunny field, her cheek,?The hostile hues of Lancaster and York?Did meet, and, blending, make a heavenly truce,?This were indeed a rose a king might wear?Upon his bosom. By St. Dunstan, now,?Himself would wear it. Then by seeming chance?Crossed he her walks, and stayed her with discourse?Devised adroitly; spoke of common things?At first--of days when his good mother lived,?If 't were to live, to pass long dolorous hours?Before his father's effigy in church;?Of one who then used often come to hall,?Ever at Yule-tide, when the great log flamed?In chimney-place, and laugh and jest went round,?And maidens strayed beneath the mistletoe,?Making believe not see it, so got kissed--?Of one that joined not in the morrice-dance,?But in her sea-green kirtle stood at gaze,?A timid little creature that was scared?By dead men's armor. Nought there suffered change,?Those empty shells of valor grew not old,?Though something rusty. Would they fright her now?Looked she upon them? Held she in her mind--?'T was Spring and loud the mavis piped outside--?The day the Turkish helmet slipped from peg,?And clashing on the floor, congealed her blood?And sent both hands to terror-smitten eyes,?She trembling, ready to yield up the ghost??Right merry was it! Finally he touched?On matters nearer, things she had foreboded?And this one time must needs lend hearing to,?And end so sorry business ere woe came,?Like a true maid and honest, as she was.?So, tutoring the tremble on her lip?And holding back hot tears, she gave reply?With such discretion as straight tied his tongue,?Albeit he lacked not boldness in discourse:
"Indeed, indeed, sir, you speak but in jest!?Lightly, not meaning it, in courtier-way.?I have heard said that ladies at the Court--?I judge them not!--have most forgiving ears,?And list right willingly to idle words,?Listen and smile and never stain a cheek.?Yet not such words your father's son should use?With me, my father's daughter. You forget?What should most precious be to memory's heart,?Love that dared death; and so, farewell." Farewell?It was in sooth; for after that one time,?Though he had fain with passion-breathed vows?Besieged that marble citadel her breast,?He got no speech of her: she chose her walks;?Let only moon and star look on the face?That could well risk the candor of the sun;?Ran not to lattice at each sound of hoof;?By stream or hedge-row plucked no pansies more,?Mistrusting Proserpina's cruel fate,?Herself up-gathered in Sicilian fields;?At chapel--for one needs to chapel go?A-Sunday--glanced not either right or left,?But with black eyelash wedded to white cheek?Knelt there impassive, like the marble girl?That at the foot-end of his father's tomb,?Inside the chancel where the Wyndhams lay,?Through the long years her icy vigil kept.
As leaves turn into flame at the frost's touch,?So Richard's heart on coldness fed its fire,?And burned with surfeit of indifference.?All flavor and complexion of content?Went out of life; what served once served no more.?His hound and falcon ceased to pleasure him;?He read--some musty folios there were?On shelf--but even in brave Froissart's page,?Where, God knows, there be wounds enough, no herb?Nor potion found he to purge sadness with.?The gray dust gathered on the leaf unturned,?And then the spider drew his thread across.?Certain bright coins that he was used to count?With thrill at fingers' ends uncounted lay,?Suddenly worthless, like the conjurer's gold?That midst the jeers and laughter of the crowd?Turns into ashes in the rustic's hand.?Soft idleness itself bore now a thorn?Two-pronged with meditation and desire.?The cold Griselda that would none of him!?The fair Griselda! Not alone by day,?With this most solid earth beneath his feet,?But in the weird and unsubstantial sphere?Of slumber did her beauty hold him thrall.?Herself of late he saw not; 't was a wraith?He worshipped, a vain shadow. Thus he pined?From dawn to dusk, and then from dusk to dawn,?Of that miraculous infection caught?From any-colored eyes, so they be sweet.?Strange that a man should let a maid's slim foot?Stamp on his happiness and quench it quite!
With what snail-pace the traitor time creeps by?When one is out with fortune and undone!?how tauntingly upon the dial's plate?The shadow's finger points the dismal hour!?Thus Wyndham, with hands clasped behind his back,?Watching the languid and reluctant sun?Fade from the metal disk beside the door.?The hours hung heavy up there on the hill,?Where life was little various at best?And merriment had long since ta'en its flight.?Sometimes he sat and conned the flying clouds?Till on dusk's bosom nestled her one star,?And spoke no word, nor seemed alive at all,?But a mere shape and counterfeit of life;?Or, urged by some swift hunger for green boughs,?Would bid the hound to heel, and disappear?Into the forest, with himself communing?For lack of gossip. So do lonely men?Make themselves tedious to their tedious selves.?Thus passed he once in a white blaze of noon?Under his oaks, and muttered as he went:
"'My father's daughter' and 'your father's son'!?Faith, but it was a shrewd and nimble phrase,?And left me with